A new pact for discouraging cyber-bullying and predatory behavior on social networks has been signed by seventeen social networking sites that have a presence in Europe, including MySpace, Bebo, Dailymotion, YouTube, and Habbo Hotel, reports Reuters. The European Commission is hoping such widespread adoption of the pact will make the Internet a safer place for children. The announcement comes on the heels of MySpace revealing its successful blocking of 90,000 registered sex offenders, some of which were later found on Facebook. And Facebook appears to be missing from this new EU pact as well, though both MySpace and Facebook have their own initiatives with state and federal authorities in the United States for the protection of their users.

Some of the concessions participating networks can make as part of the pact include auto private profiles for users under the age of 18, making them not searchable on the networks or the search engines, as well as more reporting options for users that feel others are acting maliciously in some way.
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