Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden and Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna on Thursday announced that social-networking site Facebook has agreed to take significant steps to better protect children on its Web site.

Wasden and McKenna joined attorneys general nationwide in signing an agreement with Facebook, in which they emphasize their shared goal of protecting children from inappropriate content and unwanted contact by adults.

Facebook agreed to provide automatic warning messages when a child is in danger of giving personal information to an unknown adult; restrict the ability of users to change their listed ages; require users under 18 to affirm they have read Facebook’s safety tips when they sign up; act more aggressively to remove inappropriate content and groups from the site; and maintain a list of pornographic websites and regularly sever any links to such sites.

In addition, companies offering Facebook users services called “widgets” will now have to implement and enforce Facebook’s safety and privacy guidelines.

The agreement is similar to one that MySpace reached in January with 49 states and the District of Columbia. MySpace agreed to head a task force, which Facebook has joined, focused on developing technology to verify the age and identity of social networking site users. The task force will report back to the attorneys general every three months and issue a formal report with findings and recommendations at the end of 2008.