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Bullying is a sad fact of life for many children, and unfortunately, bullies aren't confined to the school playground anymore. They've gone high-tech and are now online. Cyberbullies, as they're called, hide behind the relative anonymity of the Internet to intimidate, insult and harass others online, without much fear of consequence. Yet experts who study the issue say this modern incarnation of bullying can be more damaging to victims than traditional tactics like fist fights and classroom taunts.

In perhaps the most notorious cyberbullying case, 49-year-old Lori Drew was recently convicted in connection with her now-infamous decision to pose as a teenage boy on MySpace in order to woo and then rebuff Megan Meier, a troubled 13-year-old girl from Missouri who later hanged herself in her bedroom closet after receiving cruel messages from the fake teenager, including one saying the world would be better off without her.

Missouri officials didn't file charges against Ms. Drew because they weren't able to find any statutes that pertained to the case. Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles, however, charged Ms. Drew with defrauding Beverly Hills-based MySpace by providing false information to the website.

The case continues to draw attention, as a jury acquitted Ms. Drew of three felony counts of computer hacking--reportedly because they couldn't agree that the unauthorized access was committed with the express intent of harming Megan Meier. Jurors did find Ms. Drew guilty, though, of three misdemeanor counts of unauthorized access to MySpace, minus the intent to commit harm. The jury deadlocked on a felony conspiracy charge.

With regard to the felony computer hacking charges accusing Ms. Drew of obtaining illegal access to MySpace's computers, the jury would have had to find that she knowingly violated the MySpace terms of agreement, and did so in order to cause harm to Megan Meier. Conviction on those charges could have resulted in a federal prison sentence of as much as 20 years for Ms. Drew.

The jurors instead convicted Ms. Drew on three lesser misdemeanor charges for simply accessing MySpace's computer system under false pretenses to obtain information about and from 13-year-old Megan.

The jury foreman in the case has said that jurors weren't allowed to take into account the last message sent to Megan Meier because the message was sent by instant messaging through America Online (AOL), according to press reports. And the AOL message would not have been covered by MySpace's terms of service, which were at the core of the case against Ms. Drew.

On January 8th, District Judge George Wu held a supplemental hearing to consider arguments for and against letting the jury verdict stand, after lawyers for Ms. Drew submitted a written motion to dismiss. The final outcome of that hearing is pending; Ms. Drew is currently scheduled to be sentenced on April 30th.

As this tragic story continues to unfold, even more alarming, is that the majority of cyberbullies are kids themselves and not 49-year-old adults. Tales of cyberbullying crimes are cropping up around the country as more children and teenagers wage war with one another on computers and cell phones. Child advocates are quickly learning that the newest threat is the everyday harm kids inflict on one another in chat rooms, social networking sites, virtual worlds and text messages. In fact, more than half of American teens are affected by cyberbullying, according to the National Crime Prevention Council. Yet most parents are largely unaware of the problem, as very few teens report incidences of bullying to their parents or other adults.

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