The Maine Attorney General’s Office is demanding that MySpace turn over the names of all registered Maine sex offenders who have a page on the social networking Web site.

The state wants to use the information to check up on sex offenders, particularly those who are not allowed to use a computer or to contact children.

“We’ve had a concern for a while,” Attorney General Steven Rowe said.

In 2006, MySpace hired a firm to develop a sophisticated tool that checks its site for registered sex offenders. Because MySpace members often use fake names, ages or locations in an effort to remain anonymous, the tool matches photos, identifies tattoos and looks at other information to pinpoint who on the site is a sex offender, Rowe said.

So far, MySpace has found more than 17,000 registered sex offenders on its site.

On Wednesday, the Sun Journal conducted its own simple investigation. Taking names from Maine’s sex offender registry, we looked up the more than 250 sex offenders who live or work in Lewiston-Auburn to see if they had MySpace accounts. Seven popped up.

Two seemed to match, though the MySpace photos were too blurry to positively identify.

Five others were definite. One man, convicted of gross sexual misconduct, posted his sex offender mug shot as his MySpace photo. Another man, convicted of having sexual contact with a child under 14, posted his cell phone number on his MySpace page and wrote that he was looking for a date.

While the pages appear to have been made by the sex offenders themselves, anyone can create a MySpace page using the name and photo of someone else.

And Rowe is quick to point out that it isn’t a crime for a sex offender to have a Web site or a MySpace page.

“They may be doing nothing illegal. I want to be very clear on that,” he said.

But some sex offenders are not allowed to own a computer or have contact with children under a certain age as part of their probation. Those are the people Rowe and local police are interested in tracking on MySpace.

“We certainly have concerns about registered sex offenders having accounts on there,” Lewiston police Chief William Welch said.

His Lewiston officers try to monitor sex offenders’ online activities, but it can be difficult. Some people don’t use their real names. Others pretend to be younger or older, a different gender or living in a different state. Often, the police have to rely on tips from the public in order to find out what sex offenders are doing online.

A list from MySpace “would be very helpful, obviously,” he said.

Auburn police also try to track sex offenders’ online activities. Each Auburn officer is responsible for monitoring a sex offender and checking up on that person at least once a month.

A MySpace list would make the online part of that job easier, said Auburn Detective Lt. Scott Watkins.

“That would be an awesome tool,” he said.

Because MySpace has agreed to give its membership information to other states, Maine’s Attorney General’s Office doesn’t anticipate a fight. Rowe expects to have the list in the next several days.

Once he gets it, he plans to pass the information on to Maine’s district attorneys.

“Protecting our children from predators online is just as important as protecting them in our neighborhoods,” Rowe said.

Experts’ tips for parents:

• Keep your child’s computer in a high-traffic area, such as the living room.

• Set rules for computer use.

• Monitor your children’s online activities. Know who they’re talking to online.

• Don’t let your children give out personal information online, including their full name, school, hometown and favorite hobbies. Explain the danger: Strangers can easily use that information to locate them.

• Get tech savvy. If your children aren’t already computer gurus, they soon will be.

For the Maine sex offender registry, visit:

http://sor.informe.org/sor/