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My parents didn't let me get internet until I was 17, though they would never have considered e-stalking me (even if they weren't useless with technology!).
I'm sure they'd have wanted to know what I was doing online if they were at all suspicious of me, but there's a difference between knowing your child is using MySpace and hacking into their account and reading private conversations. What's the worst that could even happen from using MySpace? Why not just ask them what they're doing? Or create an account yourself and add them as a friend?
Of course, if you have reason to not trust them, well, maybe it is reasonable enough thing to do. My parents, as paranoid about paedophiles and all the disturbing stuff you find on the net as they were, trusted me. If they had been a little less useless with technology they'd probably have put child-protecting controls on the computer, limiting me from accessing certain things, but just like they didn't flick though the text messages on my phone, they'd never have considered accessing my online accounts. I don't see any difference between reading MySpace messages and text messages.
Although I am 22 and not 16, I was recently horrified to find out either my sister or father had been reading my blog for months. I don't know how they found it, but this horrified me enough. Would you read your son's blog since you wouldn't read a handwritten diary? Or is that totally different just because the blog is online?
Maybe I'm defensive about teenager's rights to privacy because I'm not long past the teen phase/live with my parents...but I think there's a big difference between privacy and keeping them in line.
On a more lighthearted note, I hope you appear offline when logging into his MSN. Nothing is worse than accidentally starting a conversation with your friend's mother. So so awkward. >_<
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