Facebook receives New York subpoena

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has subpoenaed Facebook for documents related to its safety, security, and complaint-resolution measures. In an undercover investigation, the Attorney General's office claims to have found evidence that the site was slow in responding to complaints about Facebookers soliciting people for sex on the site.

According to The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), "Besides finding evidence of underage users being targeted by sexual predators and widespread pornographic and obscene content on the site, the review also found 'slow, sporadic and inconsistent' responses to user and parental complaints, according to a letter Mr. Cuomo sent to Facebook's founder and chief executive officer, Mark Zuckerberg."

This probably isn't a big long-term concern for Facebook. Given the site's extremely rapid growth, it isn't too surprising that the company may lack the resources, for now, to deal with complaints as quickly as it should. It's obviously in Facebook's best interests to have a safe site, and I would expect they will do everything they can to accomplish this.