I'm single and have been trying out the dating sites online, SO many men lie about their age, how I wish there was a way to meet someone honest!

I have to re-iterate that there doesn't need to be a law *specifically* for lying about your age on the internet. Lying about personal details is one of the oldest jokes of the internet (i.e. an older unattractive guy trying to pass himself off as a young, handsome stud to a woman on the internet that looks to be young and beautiful but is really just as as old and unattractive as he is). Passing any such law would either be overly restrictive or so vague as to be unenforceable. If something were passed, are you going to jail someone that neglected to change their age on a social networking site which doesn't base your age off your birth date? I know I've done that in the past and it was far from intentional. How about if the "intentionally neglected" to change it (assuming you could make a case to prove it)?

However, this not to say that "criminal types" could not be charged with some type of fraud (either though a criminal or civil case) of which there are usually several laws of that nature already on the books with varying degrees of severity.

It personally breaks my heart to see that half of the people here have disagreed that there should be a law against lying about your age online. When I was only 14 I was framed for a crime by an online predator I'd chatted with for a few years who had claimed to be my age, but could have been any age. (I had given this person my address and my passwords out of trust.) I was traumatized and depressed for a few years after it happened.

Parents must do better to protect their children from online predators, and the government needs to take more action also.

There doesn't need to be a law for this, and even if there were it would be mostly ineffective as it would only apply in the U.S. (which would mean the system from which the lie was posted would have to be on "U.S. soil"). Therefore such a law may hold up for lying about your age on, say, Myspace, but it would be harder to apply for everything, especially services use direct connections for communicating as both parties would probably have to be under the same jurisdiction.

Plus, people are just going to lie about their *name* or whatever else they have to lie about in order to get around any "government-provided age verification database" (which has all sorts of other issues itself). Identity theft is already enough of a problem without adding social networks to the list of misuses. About the best you could probably do (at least U.S.-wise) would be to use some very personal ID number that most everyone has (not social security #!!!) and verify against that number when registering on that site. This number would not be stored against the account, just used as a means of verification.

I think there should be a way to protect children against predators on the internet and I think the law should go even further. Government databases can't be used because of privacy laws, but governments should give far more money to safegauard children. But this may not be enough either, as I sadly learned on the Natalee Holloway board. A so-called "civilized" country like Holland will blame the victim, make it seem the mother may have done it for insurance money and say America should clean it's own house before expecting Holland or Aruba to arrest a corrupt judge or investigate a corrupt police force. I support the petition but so much more should be done. There is more I'd like to say, but I've recently learned how ugly selfish some people are when it comes between safeguarding an innocent child and taking any action to protect children if it costs them money. The governments of Aruba and Holland chose to protect a corrupt Judge and corrupt police from Holland and Aruba rather than admit they had a problem because it might affect their tourist industry. What happened with Aruba and Holland showed me that even good laws are not enough if a government is not going to enforce them. The people of even "civilized" countries like Holland have a paint job of smiley faces on them on the surface but on the inside they if it becomes a matter of protecting children from predators or spending money to protect them, then money is more important to them. I guess this post will be taken down too. But laws are not enough, parents have to be on their guard and speak out. We also have to act by blocking every chat room, message service, facebook and blog service and not letting our children participate on them. We would like to believe that the life of a child is sacred to most people of the world, but it isn't. It would be better if every parent did whatever it took to block internet chats because it is just too easy for predators to gain entry and gain children's trust. Teenagers used to have to talk on the telephone, but at least with the telephone today's technology helps parents know who their children are talking to. People who block their number and name from being shown can have their calls blocked from being received. For a few dollars every number that the phone calls and every call received is recorded and stored with the callers name and number. Is this being unrealistic? Do we have to accept every technology that comes along and let our children use them? There are just too many creeps out there and too many people who don't care about our children, even though they say they do.