According to reports, MySpace plans to offer free parental notification software named "Zephyr" in a bid to appease its critics from the government.

The software will enable parents to find out the user name, age, and location used by children for representation on MySpace.

However, it will not allow reading e-mails or checking profiles, and will also send out an alert to the children warning them that their information is being shared.

Incase after receiving the alert, the child changes his/her user name, age, and hometown, the software will report back to the parent about this change. The software will collect such information about anyone who logs onto MySpace from a home computer.

The news comes even as a group of 33 state attorney generals investigate whether to take action against MySpace or not in the event it does not raise the age limit to join the site from the current 14 years to 16 years, as also begin verifying members' ages against public databases.

At this juncture, a lawsuit is definitely not what MySpace needs, both in terms of money and reputation involved.

On the member verification issue, MySpace says it has not yet found a solution for the attorney generals' request for age verification.

The site is very popular amongst teenagers, and has been facing public criticism for its inability to prevent children from falling prey to sex offenders.

Meanwhile, one of the major concerns among the Internet industry is that of violation of users' privacy rights. The community fears that sharing of user information will violate the right to privacy of users. Another concern is whether the software would allow people other than parents to monitor children.

In fact due to privacy concerns, social networking sites such as Facebook, and blogging sites like Xanga have declined to join MySpace's efforts.

Other major players like Yahoo!, Google, AOL, etc remain incommunicado on the matter.