US lawmakers question Facebook's membership plan for children below 13

Washington, June 5 (ANI): Two US lawmakers have raised concerns over a report suggesting that Facebook is developing a technology that would allow children below the age of 13 to use the social-networking site without lying about their age.

Massachusetts Democrat Ed Markey and Texas Republican Joe Barton, fired off a letter to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg raising questions on the technology the firm is working on to give kids their own accounts.

A recent Wall Street Journal report revealed that Facebook was creating mechanisms to let parents keep tabs on what their kids are doing on the site, and noted that it wasn't clear when, or if, the company would actually launch such a service.

Markey and Barton asked Zuckerberg for an explanation of all the options the company has considered for letting kids 12 and younger join the social network.

According to a new report by the Journal, the congressmen also asked whether or not Facebook planned to collect and sell children's personal information.

"We acknowledge that more and more children under the age of 13 are using Facebook and this is a problem that needs to be addressed," the Congressmen wrote.

"While Facebook provides important communication and entertainment opportunities, we strongly believe that children and their personal information should not be viewed as a source of revenue," they added. (ANI)