New US Link and Domain Law

[enerji2u]

In a perfect world....

But, this isnt perfect and MANY MANY children don't have very wise parents around, if any at all. Then, there is the public library, their friends house, and schools. YOu cant watch them every second of every minute. Not every kid has the right tool at their hands...so congress has to step in to help ALL children in ALL situations.

Kudos, FOR ONCE, to our Congress.

Oh, so you think the government will parent your children better than you will?

If you're that concerned over what your kids see then don't give them access, or supervise it strictly. Preview sites BEFORE opening them. Invest in some software. But don't crow about how good it is that the guvmint is trying to control something they have no jurisdiction over, since most of it isn't even IN this country.

[TrafficProducer]

It's a start :)

Maybe all talk no action, but they have to start somewhere..

What are they going, (can they), to do about sites outside US control?

Safer Surfing, To help prevent viewing of Adult sites

[CGunn]

I had the misfortune of having my domain hijacked two months ago. It was a children's education site and the first thing they did was throw up a porn site. So I would love to hit them with this because they knowingly put children at risk. The site is meant for teachers but what if a teacher had opened the page in class (which in fact happened in a lot of schools). Yeah. Go get 'em.

However, since then, I've recently contacted the thousands of libraries, k12 schools, universities etc that linked to the original site and asked them to move the link to the new site. But I'm finding that so many of these web pages are no longer actively updated. Does this mean these people who leave the links to the old pages up will be liable? It seems it may scare websites from linking altogether because you never know when the link destination will change. I hope in reality, the law enforecment would start by merely requesting that links be removed (or updated) before more serious penalties are handed out.

(Or maybe making people liable for their links is not such a bad idea. It would get rid of a great deal of link rot).

[OKSupport]

... since most of it isn't even IN this country.

I assume you are not in the 'states', because most of the Internet IS in the states - especially child pron sites. "The U.S. has the dubious honor of hosting more online child porn sites than anywhere is the world, according to an international agency that tracks such sites."

What do you mean by "most of the internet"? As far as I know, most of the users are outside the US.

Then you are more in the know than most statisticians whose number crunching on the 'Net show the US to have the most servers, hosting the most web sites, the most child porn, and having the most users. Any way, I meannt what I meant. Most of the Internet is in the US. I diodn't say "users". Good that you came along and cleared up the statisticians mistakes.

The US hosts more prn sites that anywhere else because the US hosts more sites of all kinds than anywhere else.

And that makes it OK? The US has the best tools, and if like their usual guns, missiles, and tanks approach, they wanted to use them, could run child porn back underground where the perverts are harder to find.

yadda yadda .... ad then

The same applies to anyone else. If the US government wanted to make life difficult for sites hosted in the US, it would take a couple of hours for the site owners to move the sites to another country. You wouldn't even notice any interruption, and the stuff would still be just a click away.

It would take more than a couple of hours to propegate, but that aside, if that is the case, why hasn't the US made it harder as you suggest they could? Why have they only thrown a few pieces of law onto paper to fight sites mislead and that entice kids?

It just seems such a waste of time, when the politicians have so much to do...

Ah finally - good point. ;)

[ggreenwood4]

like www.Whitehouse.com, remember the Mars Lander, schools across the country logged into www.nasa.com instead of nasa.gov and all these kids were exposed to porn!!! Since this happen to be FEDERAL Agencies these two examples have be changed. But NOT any that are NOT Government agency sites.
How about a SIMPLE SOLUTION.., All Porn Site should end with a .Prn (PoRN) or .xxx designation and not allowed any .com or any other extention except one that would be given to ALL Adult Websites Exclusively!NO MORE CONFUSION!
www.Whitehouse.xxx or www.nasa.prn you would know it was a porn site. This Would Also Make It Easier For Parents To Block all .XXX Sites. No More Porn!
Personally I like The .xxx its even less confusing! Does Anyone Have An Idea How WE Might Get This Accomplished?

[bj]

ICANN has their heads up their posteriors on this issue, and the damndest thing about it is that the pron purveyors want it as much as the "regular folk". Do you think the real pron sites WANT kids who aren't legal and don't have credit cards to waste their bandwidth?

And believe me, filtering sites out will be a lot easier when they all have a designated tld.

Good article on this here:
p2pnet.net

[tenntrips]

I don't believe it is wasteful spending. Have you ever typed in a domain incorrectly and been sent somewhere you didn't want go? I have.

Have you ever tried to go to a children's site with your children looking over your shoulder and someone took a common site and common mispelling to display unwelcome material. I have.

This is not about free speech. Just as I can't jokingly, yell "Fire" in a crowded setting, I shouldn't be able to have domains and links that only purpose is to deceive people into getting something they didn't ask for.

If you want people to come see your "stuff" or see other people's "stuff", be honest about it. What is so difficult in that? And it is because people have decided to be deceitful that Congress had to act.

No kidding!! Anyone remember whitehouse.com ???
Students in classrooms looking for information on our government were taken to a huge page of porn.

Let's face it, when they WANT to find porn, they WILL, but at least this may stop an 8 year old from coming across it by accident.

[kre8tor69]

This may actually be a good IDEA BUT.... Inforcement will be impossible and ultimately expensive to you and me. Another waist of tax money. When did the US cort system gain control over the entire web and the rest of the world?

So much of our problems in this world today stem directly from our arrogance in thinking we are the policeman to the world. Every one will bow down at our feet just because we say something. How are the US corts going to get at and punish a web site in the Ukrane or Bogaria or China?

Come on people why not actually work at parenting your own and let the rest of the world do the same. Have your own "family values" (what ever that means today) and JUST SHUT UP!!!!

[hmoulding]

I know for a fact that porn could easily be controlled just by simply using .xxx as an extension on domain names that way anything that has to do with the adult industry is defined and if parents what to block adult sites they can restrict access to .xxx. what is the industry waiting for.

And then you'd be dealing with links to 81.55.123.12 or some such thing. The point of this law is to prevent misleading links, which simply relegating all adult content to .xxx wouldn't do.

Not that I think this is a good law. It seems to me to be largely unenforceable. I'm also a bit worried how that law might get used. I seem to recall that "harmful to children" is a pretty broad category. Weren't parts of some earlier law declared unconstitutional because they were too broad by referring to this definition?

[kre8tor69]

The law doesnt say they cant have a website for their adult material, what the law is saying is to be responsible about the whole thing and to protect children from seeing material not meant for their eyes.

Did you hear about the whole Barbie.com legal battle. The amount of children that saw the once-sexual site could probably astound you.

Besides, what kind of person shouldn't be fined or jailed for TRYING to get children to view their material? It's sexual abuse, anyway you look at it.

And by the way, those "I am over 18" buttons dont stop anyone from entering, regardless of age. There needs to be a stricter law and enforcement to get anyone into a sexually explicit site, to make sure they are adults entering. This is a great start!

Ok! It's your turn! I am the person on the other end of the new law! I am going to ask you to send me a lot of information on your self so you can prove your over 21 and are smart enought to see things I do not want you to see! So. send me your name, address, city, zip code, hat size, shoe size, mothers maden name, passport number, drivers liscens number, .... Oh Yeah and send me your credit card and banking information too. I "promise" I wont use any of this for any BAD things no or in the future. What's my name you say... ah um oh THE GOVERNMENT THAT'S ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW SO JUST SEND IT NOW....