Registered sex offenders who maintain pages on the social networking Web site MySpace.com could face prosecution now that the popular online service has agreed to hand over thousands of names and addresses to law enforcement officials.

State attorneys general from around the country have been pushing MySpace, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., to hand over the identities of sex offenders after the company began tracking them this month.

Yesterday, the company relented after being issued a subpoena, according to the office of the New York attorney general, Andrew Cuomo.

Mr. Cuomo said he planned to use the information to help locate offenders in New York that have violated parole rules barring them from contacting minors or using computers.

MySpace’s chief security officer, Hemanshu Nigam, said yesterday that the company could take credit for developing the first data-gathering system that compares information about its users with sex offender registries — and said MySpace had already used the system to delete thousands of accounts.

“We have zero tolerance for sexual predators on MySpace and took the initiative to create this first of its kind tool ourselves,” Mr. Nigam said.

Before the announcement of the deal yesterday, MySpace had said it would release the information to the state attorneys general only if they issued a subpoena, which is what the attorneys did — although they noted that the company had been cooperative.

The MySpace privacy policy states that the company will not disclose information about users to third parties “unless we believe that disclosure is necessary.” The policy cites three reasons that MySpace might agree to hand over information, including a subpoena, to protect the rights of the company, or to “protect the safety of members of the public and users of the service.”