Post: Can You Delete Danger?
Can You Delete Danger?
Senator Ted Stevens (R) from Alaska, who may be best known in tech circles for his speech calling the Internet a "series of tubes" has resurrected the Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA) under the new name -- Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act.
PBS's Andy Carvin nicely summarizes the legislation's three sections:
Title I would force video service providers, online or otherwise, to prevent the distribution of child pornography over their services. It then goes on to require that any site that includes adult materials to not include such materials on their homepage, and embed a mark within their site's pages that identifies their content as adult-oriented. This requirement would be incumbent upon the site's owners, and not the Internet service provider that hosts the site. Failure to do so could land a site owner in jail for up to five years.
Title II, Deleting Online Predators, is essentially the original DOPA legislation, but with some new twists. If enacted into law, it would enforce "a policy of Internet safety for minors that prevents cyberbullying and includes monitoring the online activities of minors and the operation of a technology protection measure with respect to any of its computers with Internet access." The bill would only apply to schools that receive federal Internet subsidies via the E-Rate program. School policy would also be required to protect "against access by minors without parental authorization to a commercial social networking website or chat room, and informs parents that sexual predators can use these websites and chat rooms to prey on children."
Title II wraps up with a mandate to the Federal Trade Commission to send out a "consumer alert" warning of the dangers of online social networks and other interactive websites. The FTC would also be required to set up a website outlining these dangers.
Title III focuses on protecting children's privacy. This part of the bill would make it illegal for anyone to sell or purchase private data about someone they know to be a child. The title includes an exception for any data that is exchanged with parental consent, such as during an e-commerce transaction.
Is this legislation a good idea? Read Anastasia's expert opinion on her Totally Wired blog.
There are 1 replies to this post
Date: February 6, 2007
Some good ideas here (cracking down on child pornography), but the rest is too restrictive. Not allowing access to any social networking sites is a little too extreme. It also doesn't define what a "social networking website" is, and that could range from anything from MySpace to this blog.
Probably the best way to protect your kids is to enroll them in martial arts, so they have the wherewithal to defend themselves if ever confronted with that situation.