San Francisco - Hit website MySpace.com said Tuesday that it had removed the profiles of thousands of convicted sex offenders from its website.

The biggest social networking site on the internet said it took action as part of a programme to protect its young members from adult predators.

But the move came just a day after eight US attorneys general demanded that the company hand over information about offenders from among MySpace's 175 million profiles.

The website, which is owned by News Corp, said it would not hand over the required information without a search warrant since that would violate the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.

MySpace said it was able to uncover the presence of sexual predators thanks to the recent development and installation of the first national database of 600,000 registered convicted offenders in the US.

The families of several teenage girls sexually assaulted by MySpace members are suing the company for failing to take protective measures.