Tuesday, social networking websites Facebook and MySpace, along with Google, signed a pact with the European Union, aimed at enhancing security against the bullying and abuse of teenagers online.

The European Union stated that social networking sites were used by approximately 42 million people from the member states and warned that teenagers needed to be protected against any form of online abuse.

The pact, which was signed by 17 site operators in the EU, entails that the latter limit the threat of youngsters being abused via networking sites by providing a „report abuse” button, which enables users to report any inappropriate contact from other users to the website’s operator. The latter, when notified of an event of the like, will consequently inform the local authorities, which will take over the complaint.

In addition, the agreement commits site operators to ensure that online profiles and contact lists of underage users are fitted with the highest privacy settings and also see to it that they cannot be obtained through search engines.

EU officials have informed that the pact was voluntary, but added that they planned to push for the same minimum safety measures on all social networking sites across Europe.

Furthermore, the European Union also released a video clip aimed at raising awareness concerning Internet use among both parents and youngsters.

A survey conducted back in July 2008 showed that 52 percent of Polish Internet users aged between 12 and 17 had been exposed to abuse when they had used the Internet.