A new approach on “Cyber Safety for Kids” has been eyed to give teachers, parents and librarians greater control over what minors are viewing online. The Cyber Safety for Kids Act of 2007 would require adult websites to include a flag that would make it easier for filtering software on computers to block those sites. The bill co-sponsored by Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) also would require adult websites to have a clean homepage that asks a visitor to enter his or her birth date before allowing passage to pornographic pages.

The proposal, which the senators describe as a discussion draft, relies on the idea of embedding a new tag–such as L18–in all Web pages that the government deems unsuitable for minors. Then future Web browsers used by minors could be configured to reject L18-labeled Web pages.

“We want to keep our kids safe when they’re on the Internet,” Baucus said in a statement. “Parents and teachers shouldn’t worry about their kids when they’re on the computer at home or in the classroom. This bill will help keep kids safe and give parents peace of mind.”

“This is a real problem and it’s something I hear about from parents all over the state of Arkansas,” Pryor said. “We hope it provides the basic protections necessary to give parents peace of mind, and we hope it’s effective.

The new bill calls on the Department of Commerce to enforce the law and fine owners or shut down Web sites for noncompliance. However, both Senators admitted that the legislation is not a cure-all but convinced this is a step in the right direction.

The two Senators are expected to face many challenges, one because the US laws cannot force websites based in other countries to comply. Others say that the First Amendment makes any restrictions inappropriate, even to protect children.

In 2006, both Senators were responsible for proposing a bill that would have forced so-called adult content onto Web sites that carried an XXX domain name. Domains that had the usual suffixes such as .com, .gov, .org, and .net would have been banned from containing sexually charged material. But the bill did not materialized as last month, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) rejected the proposal primarily because ICANN would be force to monitor website content which is something beyond their scope.

However, since the enforcement of the new bill would come through civil penalties issued by the Department of Commerce, one can expect that the ending could be a different story. If the Congress was able to pass legislation to restrict Internet gambling last year, then they certainly ought to be able to pass this bill to protect children.

Related:

Entry was posted on Thursday, April 12th, 2007 at 10:56 pm under Adult content, Technology.

Read more entries by Ruben Francia.
Stumble It!