Chicago (IL) - The European Union announced yesterday that it had signed a pact with 17 social networking providers, including Facebook, MySpace and Google, to "improve safeguards against the bullying of teenagers online."





According to EU spokesman, Martin Selmayr, 42 million people in the EU currently use social networking sites. His interests believe young users need to be "protected from abusive behavior on the Web sites."



The agreement is a voluntary effort which introduces a "Report Abuse" button, allowing a social networking site user to limit their risks by reporting "inappropriate contact from or conduct by" another user. In addition, each site in the pact must agree to "make sure online profiles and contact lists of underage users are set to the highest privacy settings."