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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.
naked.kids?
-b
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
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?
.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.
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
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
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.
"Anybody remotely interesting is mad, in some way or another" - Doctor Who
- Dan I.