A 14-year old Texas teen has sued MySpace for $30 million, saying she was sexually assaulted by a 19-year old who contacted her through the site, masquerading as a high-school senior who played football. This is, of course, just the latest in a long stream of sexual-predator charges afflicting the social network, and Valleywag, for one, has started to lose its patience: "Look, kid, just because your dream boy turned out to not be a high-school football hottie doesn't mean MySpace will cut you a $30 million check," writes the acid-tongued Silicon Valley gossip site. Maybe so, but Publishing 2.0 thinks Mr. Murdoch's fast-growing Internet play is a "ticking time bomb" because of cases like this.

Meanwhile, MySpace has announced plans to go global, no doubt hoping that there will be fewer sexual predators -- or less litigious victims -- overseas. In an interview yesterday with the Financial Times, co-founder Chris DeWolfe went public with the social network's imminent plans to expand into 11 countries, specifically naming France, Germany, China and India. But the real shocker here is that DeWolfe and crew have made it to upwards of 75 million registered users, without even getting around to offering foreign-language versions of the service. Mon dieu!