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Uncategorized Thursday, April 5th 2012 at 7:10 pm

New York Sex Offenders Kicked From Xbox Live, Other Online Gaming Services

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Any New York State-based sex offenders who are into online gaming are about to get an unpleasant surprise when they discover their accounts on Xbox Live and a number of other online gaming services have been terminated. As part of Operation: Game Over, NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has announced that over 3,500 accounts tied to sex offenders in New York have been terminated. Xbox Live is the only service mentioned by name in the press release, but the companies Microsoft, Apple, Blizzard, Electronic Arts, Disney, Warner Bros. and Sony are all lumped in as well. They are responsible for other online gaming services like PlayStation Network, Origin, and Battle.net between them.

In New York, sex offenders have to provide the state with email addresses and screen names in addition to the other standard information like physical address. This information can then be shared with online services at which point, the services can close accounts if they’d like to remove sex offenders from their service. Apparently most do. Not all sex offender accounts were permanently closed, however. According to the press release, some services opted to just revoke communication privileges, which seems like a less harsh but effective way to solve the problem. Either way, this marks the first time sex offenders have been purged from online gaming services. Its unlikely to be the last.

(via Joystiq)

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  • David Hess

     It is notable that the only case mentioned in the Attorney General’s
    press release is that of “Richard Kretovic, a 19-year-old man from
    Monroe County, [who] pled guilty to sexual abuse charges after meeting a
    12-year-old boy on the popular online video game system Xbox LIVE.”
    Mr. Kretovic was not a registered sex offender at the time of his crime,
    and this announced action would not have prevented his crime.
    Apparently, the Attorney General’s office is unable to point to any
    incident in New York State where a registered sex offender victimized
    someone using a gaming network, or they would have mentioned it. I make
    it a point to stay on top of such things, and I have never heard of any
    such case.

    The primary risk is not from offenders we know about
    but those we don’t know about. In New York State, 95% of those arrested
    for sex crimes have no prior convictions for sex crimes and thus are not
    listed on any registry. Training workshops were held across New York
    State last week that were attended by hundreds of law enforcement
    officers, corrections officers, etc. Research presented there indicates that New York’s sex offender management policies have not made our communities safer.

    “Operation: Game Over” is made possible by New York’s eSTOP law
    which requires registered sex offenders to report their e-mail
    addresses and other Internet identifiers. They are then excluded from
    Facebook and other networks. Of course, this also prevents them from
    posting the true facts about registered sex offenders and “Operation:
    Game Over” because many news and media outlets require Facebook accounts in order to post comments.

    Who is playing the real games here?

  • Dan Maresca

    Agreed

  • Bob

    Sounds like someone is offended by this action. Perhaps you are on a registry somewhere.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Pamela-Kemp-Grabinski/530455839 Pamela Kemp Grabinski

    Great.  Diminish the time-fillers for sex offenders.  Whatever will they do to entertain themselves?  It seems to me these people need more hobbies, not less.

  • lot of politics

    take a look at the politics behind all of this… the govt or corporations want all services, devices, social medias, etc, online (“the cloud”) Then they want to control who should have access to work or play. If you have a copy of the game software for your device, your own apps or programs for your own PC, your own hard-drive for data storage, then you won’t have to worry about stupid things like this. (there are bad guys out and there are those who are framed, but just like the poor folks that exist, you will always have them in our society… restore, rehabilitate and try to get along)

  • http://twitter.com/HoroscopeRaper Elias Algorithm

     Sounds less like a control issue and more like doing something useless to make it look like they’re actually working.

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  • Jhgjhg

    these are criminals and have no rights, anyone in america convicted of a crime should not be allowed the same freedom as the rest of us who manage to NOT get arrested.