Facebook Saved by One Line of Text

In terms of strict legalese, the bill defines an international marriage broker as "a corporation, partnership, sole proprietorship, or other legal entity that does business in the United States and offers to Maryland residents ... social referral services involving recruits by (exchanges of personal information) or otherwise facilitating communication between a client and a recruit."

By the above definition, your favorite social networking sites could be considered international marriage brokers as soon as you make contact with a person beyond our borders, if your intent might include future matrimony. The reason being that the legislation defines a recruit as "an individual who is not a citizen or resident of the United States and who uses the services of ... an international marriage broker for ... social referral services."

The verbiage of the legislation is incredibly obtuse and ill-defined, although it does make perfectly clear that if you want to find yourself a spouse from another country, you had better be prepared for a background check that is deep and thorough enough to qualify you to be president of the United States.

The single line of text that temporarily protects sites such as Facebook and MySpace, but that may ultimately condemn the dating sites so many people are familiar with reads: "International marriage broker does not include: an organization that does not charge a fee based on gender or country of origin to any party for the services provided."

So for now, social networking for international romance is safe. However, by the language of the Maryland state legislature, that's only because we're not yet being charged the indicated fees for the use of those sites.