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Excerpted from MySpace For Dummies*

When you sign up to become a MySpace member, you go through the same enrollment process as the individual users, celebrity users, bands, filmmakers, and everyone else who stakes a claim in the MySpace world.

To begin your own adventures on MySpace, you need to have a few things to get started:

• A computer connected to the Internet. You need to be connected to the place where MySpace lives – the World Wide Web.
• An e-mail address. MySpace requires you to have an active email address before you can get signed up. The address you provide will be the initial destination for communications MySpace sends you, including notices when you get new friend requests or when someone posts a comment on your page.

At least 14 years of life under your belt. MySpace requires you to be at least 14 years old to sign up and use the service. Although it's pretty simple to just lie about your age to get an account if you're under 14, MySpace shuts down thousands of pages per day for users under 14. Don't sign up until you're old enough, end of story. And if you find someone using MySpace who's under 14, report him or her to the site administrators.

What's wrong with lying about my age on MySpace?

People lie about their ages for a lot of reasons. People over 30 might claim they're still in their 20s so they come off as college-aged hipsters. Someone in her 50s might claim she's 39 on MySpace if her business is dominated by younger folks. In cases such as these two, telling little white lies about your age on MySpace is okay. You're still a liar, but if you're okay with it, it doesn't hurt anyone.

Here are a couple of specific cases when lying about your age on MySpace is not a good thing:

If you're under 14 years old and sign up as being old enough to use MySpace, you're in violation of MySpace's terms of agreement and your profile will be subject to deletion.

If you're an adult over 18 and you claim you're under 18 in order to make closer contact with users under 18, you're not only in violation of MySpace's terms of agreement, you might also be subject to arrest and prosecution depending on the nature of your communication.

If you discover any other users who are violating MySpace's terms of agreements by lying about their age, contact MySpace's customer service to report those users. If you discover one or two folks telling a little white lie about their age just to fight the effects of Father Time, do them a favor and keep their little lie a secret (it might come in handy as blackmail later on down the road).

MySpace rules that make MySpace rule

As with any community, MySpace needs a good set of rules to make sure everyone plays nice. Without rules, there is chaos. Considering that MySpace is a community with over 100 million user profiles ranging from 14 year olds to adults to bands, filmmakers, and comedians, you begin to understand why they need a clearly stated set of rules to make sure everything operates smoothly.

Verifying that you've read MySpace's Terms of Service is part of the sign up process. Before you get started on MySpace, you should actually read through the Terms of Service to make sure you understand what you can and can't do with your MySpace profile. Among the things prohibited by MySpace are

• Content posted to your profile that you own or hold copyright on
• Commercial use of MySpace profiles, including collecting users' names or email addresses for the purposes of sending unsolicited business messages
• Content deemed offensive, racist, harassing, or exploitative
• Content showing nudity or linking to an adult-themed Web site
• Content listing individuals' telephone numbers, email addresses, or street addresses
• Content deemed false or libelous
• Impersonating another person

MySpace is serious about protecting members from people sending unwanted business solicitation and junk mail. In fact, their Terms of Service even outline a means by which they can fine users $50 per incident when those users are in violation of the site's anti-junk-mail rules.

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