Sounds like a publicity stunt and frivolous style lawsuit to me. That's not to say that the alleged assult didn't happen. But last time I checked, it was up to parents to protect their kids from associating with strangers and potential predators...NOT websites.
The 14 year old willingly went out with this person...to dinner, then a movie. Why aren't the restaurant, movie theater and apartment complex (where the girl was allegedly assaulted) being sued as well? They weren't protecting this girl either. They aren't being held responsible, so what does MySpace have to do with the incident itself?
If an underaged girl meets some guy in public on the street and he manipulates her in whatever way, a lawsuit wouldn't be filed against the city...the responsible parties are the suspect, the girl, and her legal guardians. MySpace doesn't even begin to fit into any of these catgories.
If the Internet was fully regulated by the government and was subject to specific laws in which websites had a heavy responsiblity to police their users, then maybe this girl would have a valid argument/case. Otherwise, this is just another episode of "How Ignorant People Make Money Off of the Internet"
I think the amount you charge for tech support really depends on the economy and the saturation of the market for independent tech support in your area.
I recently relocated from Santa Barbara, CA to the Portland, OR area. Santa Barbara is a very wealthy small city. Many of my clients weren't too concerned with me charging anywhere from $65-$85/hour. Santa Barbara being a small coastal city of less than 100K people, there weren't many other people offering basic hardware/software consulting services.
The Portland metro area (population over a million), on the other hand has tons of people offering independent tech support in a state where the economy is a bit more depressed than CA. I've found that charging my Santa Barbara rates tends to turn people off when there are others willing to work for as insanely low as $20/hour. Meeting them halfway rate-wise and putting in a little extra work than outrageous unnamed electronics stores seems to do the trick. I suppose it's all relative.
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Sounds like a publicity stunt and frivolous style lawsuit to me. That's not to say that the alleged assult didn't happen. But last time I checked, it was up to parents to protect their kids from associating with strangers and potential predators...NOT websites.
The 14 year old willingly went out with this person...to dinner, then a movie. Why aren't the restaurant, movie theater and apartment complex (where the girl was allegedly assaulted) being sued as well? They weren't protecting this girl either. They aren't being held responsible, so what does MySpace have to do with the incident itself?
If an underaged girl meets some guy in public on the street and he manipulates her in whatever way, a lawsuit wouldn't be filed against the city...the responsible parties are the suspect, the girl, and her legal guardians. MySpace doesn't even begin to fit into any of these catgories.
If the Internet was fully regulated by the government and was subject to specific laws in which websites had a heavy responsiblity to police their users, then maybe this girl would have a valid argument/case. Otherwise, this is just another episode of "How Ignorant People Make Money Off of the Internet"
Does this mean the amount of noise in the office could double?
I think the amount you charge for tech support really depends on the economy and the saturation of the market for independent tech support in your area.
I recently relocated from Santa Barbara, CA to the Portland, OR area. Santa Barbara is a very wealthy small city. Many of my clients weren't too concerned with me charging anywhere from $65-$85/hour. Santa Barbara being a small coastal city of less than 100K people, there weren't many other people offering basic hardware/software consulting services.
The Portland metro area (population over a million), on the other hand has tons of people offering independent tech support in a state where the economy is a bit more depressed than CA. I've found that charging my Santa Barbara rates tends to turn people off when there are others willing to work for as insanely low as $20/hour. Meeting them halfway rate-wise and putting in a little extra work than outrageous unnamed electronics stores seems to do the trick. I suppose it's all relative.