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Families in New York, Texas, Pennsylvania and South Carolina are suing MySpace, alleging that adult MySpace users solicited and sexually assaulted their daughters.

The civil suits, filed in California state court earlier this week against MySpace and parent company News Corp., allege negligence, recklessness, fraud and negligent misrepresentation, CNET reports. Criminal charges have also been filed in the families' home states against the adult MySpace users in each case.

Those adults are either already in prison or have been arrested for crimes similar to the ones they are accused of committing in the MySpace cases. The lawsuits were announced on Thursday by law firms representing the families of the alledged victims.

On Wednesday, MySpace announced it would create a software program called Zephyr to help parents monitor their children's activity on MySpace. MySpace has also worked with law enforcement in the past to help track down fugitives using the social-networking site.