ST. LOUIS - After wrapping up his work in the Star Wars saga, Darth Vader settled down in Allentown, Pa. At least, that's what his Facebook page says.

Actually, there are at least a dozen people on the popular networking site claiming to be the famous villain-turned-hero, which tells us two things: There's a lot of obvious lying going on and there's not much being done to discourage it.

Both Facebook and MySpace have rules prohibiting participants from pretending to be someone else. But with droves of users - MySpace alone says it has more than 70 million - neither site is in the business of aggressively policing identity.

And they don't have to. Sites like MySpace can't be held liable for the actions of users, according to a ruling last year by a federal judge in Texas. The only time people come close to getting in trouble for using a false identity is when they commit a crime - usually it's sexual predators stalking kids. But it's the sex crime that brings charges. Using a fake persona is not a crime.

But soon it could be.

This month, federal officials in Los Angeles revealed they are investigating whether fraud was involved when 13-year-old Megan Meier hanged herself in 2006 after being taunted on MySpace by someone using a fake identity.

The account was linked to a neighboring Dardenne Prairie, Mo., family. Local authorities declined to file charges, saying the circumstances - various people had access to the account - made it difficult to assign blame. The act of creating the fictional Josh Evans, Megan's tormentor, was not considered a crime.

The L.A. investigation - in the district that includes Santa Monica, the home of MySpace - is drawing attention across the country and the industry.

At the heart of the Megan Meier incident is a larger issue of honesty on the Internet, and why sitting in front of a computer makes it so easy for some people to stretch the truth, sometimes maliciously.

The lying itself should come as no surprise. That's been around since the beginning of time, said Frank Farley, a psychology professor at Temple University and former president of the American Psychological Association.

What's changed, he said, is that the Internet has provided a new platform for some, and an opportunity for others.

"It's become, in my view, a pretty serious problem with the Internet," Farley said. "Who do you trust?"

The deceptions come in a host of flavors.

Among the more common are those in online dating, which provides a steady stream of complaints about truth bending.

Marc Goldmann, is the founder of JRetroMatch.com, a New York-based national online dating service for Jewish singles.

Most of the lies are designed to keep users of matchmaking services from being filtered out of mate searches. For example, a woman who stands 4 feet 11 inches might list her height as just over 5 feet to avoid being cut out of searches including that as a minimum.

"It's almost a strategy game," Goldmann said. "How do I get the most people to see my profile by having to lie the least?"

Still, he has little sympathy for any of it.

"It's not acceptable. It's wrong. It's unethical. I don't know how many other words you can use for it," he said.

Faking a persona a lot easier online

"It's just so much easier to pretend to be someone else online. People are very eager to try it out," said David Whittier, a professor at Boston University's School of Education. "There's really nothing wrong with that. In a way, it's a wonderful thing."

Unless, he said, it goes too far or is done to hurt someone, as in the Megan Meier case.

"There should be an appropriate penalty for what these people did," Whittier said. "I'm hoping our civilized societies will work together to develop laws and guidelines to make cyberspace more civilized."

But that's where it gets sticky, some experts say. How do you regulate the Internet - a medium that promotes the quick flow of ideas of information - without strangling its creativity?

Catherine Dwyer, a professor at Pace University's Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems, doesn't think it can be done.

Like others, she doubts the Internet will ever be able to guarantee the person on the other end of your digital line is who they say they are. Imagine, she said, the difficulties of forcing every online user to prove their identity- through driver's licenses, birth certificates, etc. - when signing up for sites like MySpace.

"None of us want to live in a world where you have to be authenticated all of the time," Dwyer said.

While everyone might worry about being lied to, most of the debate centers around making the Internet safer for children.

Responding to pressure from some states, MySpace recently announced new steps aimed at making it tougher to stalk minors. Among them: the profiles of 16and 17-year-old users will be marked "private" by default, making it harder for strangers to contact them.

There also has been pressure to raise the minimum age from 14 to 16 and to develop an age verification tool to replace the honor system in place today.

Some critics, however, say the problem isn't something that can be fixed by legislators or the social networking sites. All that does is shift responsibility away from where it should be, said Thomas Donohue, professor of mass communications and psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University.

"I put it all on the parents," said Donohue, who urges keeping close tabs on children's Internet activity. "The best guard you have is making sure you can see the screen."

Making sure you can see the screen

That's essentially the backbone of the strategy employed by Andrea Schramm, of Jennings, Mo., who has four children ranging in age from 4 to 14.

Each of them spends time online - none of them yet have their own MySpace account - but all of their surfing is done in the open on the family computer in the dining room. The machine is also loaded with software that tracks user activity.

On top of that, there is a simple rule that governs all online time in the house: The Internet isn't a place to make new friends.

"At this point, unless it's with someone they already know, I don't want them socializing on the computer," Schramm said. "They could say they are a 14-year-old girl or 14-year-old boy. But we all know that's not necessarily true."