US Congress Wants .kids TLD

mooneyguy writes: "Senators Edward Markey and John Shimkus have sponsored a bill that would seek creation of the .kids domain as an area that would be supposedly safe for children, as reported by CNN. Not only would this tread on ICANNs autonomy, but it also raises questions about enforcement and just how international standards of "decency" could possibly be determined. ICANN opposes the idea as being unworkable." Well, ICANN opposes the idea because they want to own the internet. But there are plenty of other reasons to oppose a "kid-friendly" domain. Kids in many nations of the world run around naked until well after puberty. Will they be able to post self-photos on .kids? While we're mentioning new TLDs, everyone associated with .biz apparently had a class-action suit filed against them, alleging the sweepstakes for initial registrations is an illegal lottery.

Comments

Only problem I see

[Pope]

for personal sites: what age do you get kicked out of .kids? 12? Then do we get .teens?

goatsecx.for.kids?

[Unknown Poltroon]

How long do you think itll take?

Would they allow you to register...

[aiken_d]

naked.kids?

-b

Need parent involvement, not .kids domain

[starseeker]

Frankly, I think this is a waste of time. It doesn't address any fundamental problems. As has been pointed out time and again, standards are different everywhere. What's OK in Europe probably wouldn't make it in America. Who would enforce this?

More to the point, the whole idea of a "safe internet" basically sounds to me like parents who don't want to take the trouble to educate their kid what stuff to avoid and how to handle what they may inadvertantly run into. Too young? Then what are they doing on a computer? I have issues with young kids on computers at all (same with TV) but that's another post. If you are going to let your kid on the internet, make it a family activity. Get involved. Don't use the computer as a substitute for meaningful time with your kids. That's just begging for trouble, and .kids sounds like it would encourage it. I'd vote against it. And parents, PLEASE - don't take the path of least resistance raising a child. It will be the worst decision you will ever make.

who decides what's appropriate?

[Preposterous Coward]

Let's set aside the whole business about the U.S. government trying to impose its standards a worldwide network -- for the sake of argument, pretend the suggested domain were instead .kids.us. I don't think it makes it much better: This still leaves big questions in my mind about how anyone can define "kid-safe".

First of all, safe for what age? Material that's perfectly reasonable for a 13-year-old might be inappropriate for a 7-year-old.

Secondly, "safe" is a gray area to begin with. If the goal of this legislation is to shield kids from porn, what qualifies as porn? Is a National Geographic picture of Australian aboriginals who aren't wearing any clothes off limits simply because it depicts nudity? What about a discussion of the reproductive behavior of pandas at the National Zoo?

Third, what standards does this law intend to place on areas outside of sex? Is foul language off limits? (If so, how foul is foul? There's a big difference between, say, "c--t" or "f--k" and "damn".) What about material on drugs/alcohol, violence, firearms, racial issues, religion, evolution, or anything else that might be considered controversial? Will there be a "kid-safe panel" who gets to decide if a site devoted to discussion of, say, the Holocaust falls outside the realm of "kid-safe"? How about a site that discusses "The Catcher in the Rye" or "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" -- both the kind of things that some school systems believe kids should get exposed to, and others believe are cause for censorship.

Some might argue this is just doing for the Web what the MPAA does for movies, but Web sites aren't like movies -- they change all the time, they have input from other users, etc. Who would be responsible for enforcing these standards on an ongoing basis?

Fun for all the family

[sideshow-voxx]

At the University I attended, we had a game called "Degrees of separation".

What we did was we went to a "Safe" page, and the aim was to get to a pr0n page within 7 clicks. These clicks had to be repeatable, all within the HTML document window, and no typing was allowed.

The only page that has beaten us so far was the home page of the Prime Minister of New Zealand - this page has disappeared now cause we have a new PM.

I Oppose

[daniel_isaacs]

This will result in still more marketing towards "children". As if their lives aren't commercial enough already. There is no need for this. It is, really, a silly and predictable response to imagined fears. If people want safe places for their kids to surf, look before you let them leap.

Two words:

[snake_dad]

script.kids ! :-)

I have a better idea...

[infinite9]

While I don't really have a problem with a .kids domain, and while I like the idea of kids having a "safe" place to surf, I think that this can't possibly be safe from "pollution" of one form or another. I can see NAMBLA registering nambla.kids. The average parent would still be smart to run internet filters even on those domains.

But the best idea I've heard so far is simply to place the family computer in the living room.

Oh wait I forgot, that would require supervision.