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Los Angeles – Social networking site MySpace.com on Monday agreed to release information to authorities about convicted sex offenders who had registered profiles on its web pages.

The move came days after MySpace, owned by News Corp, deleted thousands of sex offenders from its site but refused to share the personal information with eight attorneys general who had asked for the data.

MySpace originally said that providing the information would breach disclosure laws. But on Monday, after authorities issued a subpoena, the company said it could provide the information on sex offenders and what they did on the website.

The move was welcomed by the attorneys general involved in the efforts. Roy Cooper of North Carolina said he was “pleased to see MySpace step up to the plate and provide us with this very important information.”

Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said in a statement that there are “at least” 5,000 registered sex offenders with MySpace profiles who pose “an immediate, urgent risk to children.”

“I am pleased that MySpace has heeded our demand, now by subpoena, to provide information about convicted sex offenders and confirm steps to remove them from the site,” Blumenthal said.

MySpace has been widely criticized for not doing enough to protect millions of its teenage subscribers from online sexual predators. It gleaned the information on sexual predators after developing a programme called Sentinel SAFE, which mines data in its service and detects registered sex offenders among its members’ ranks, it said.

The programme was implemented this month “after an extensive period of development and testing,” MySpace said.