Your last line is the sad part. True, but sad. I know a lady who's boys have her as a friend on their Myspace account. She also has a lot of their friends on her account.
If parents monitored more they could talk to and ask their child how they know who is on their list.
Except for bands on my own account I can say that I have met about 85% of the people that I have on my own friends list. It's like anything else on the Internet. The wrong people can use them for evil purposes. No matter how well intentioned. Ten years ago the Internet as a whole was considered evil and to be avoided by many people. This time it's specifically MySpace.
When my oldest is 14 I will probably tell him to wait a few more years to use myspace. Mostly because of the ads. But, that is my own decision. Not because someone else said so.
Well, a private school does have the right to address this and to forbid it from their student population. My daughter in law allows the girls to participate in some site that only has a friends list and they can only communicate with them and only if they ask first. This is the right way to do things. It's scary out there for kids and the public sites can really harm them. Thanks for replying.