A federal appeals court has ruled that MySpace.com is immune from a lawsuit over the alleged sexual assault of a teenage girl by a man she met on the social networking Web site.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision Friday upholds the dismissal of the lawsuit.

The Texas girl’s family had sued MySpace and its parent company, News Corp., claiming that MySpace didn’t protect young users from sexual predators.

The court says federal law bars such lawsuits against Web-based services like MySpace.

It also noted that the girl, identified as Julie Doe in court papers, was 13 but indicated she was 18 when she created a MySpace profile in 2005. She was 14 when authorities say a then-19-year-old man sexually assaulted her.