Senate Approves Censored .kids.us Domain

lostchicken writes "The Senate has approved the first viable "kid-friendly" system that doesn't try to control the Internet. See the story here. It is an opt-in system that allows a .kids.us domain to be pointed at a site approved as safe, as opposed to an adult only domain type system."

Comments

Re:Uhhh...michael, did you even read the bill?

[Bonker]

This seems simple enough to me. If you want your children to access the .kids.us sites, then you have to install a Mozilla or an IE plugin. Those that don't have those plugins can't go (Boo-hoo...) and those that do are subject to the restrictions placed upon them by the .kids.us domain sites.

Does this allow the government or Neustar to spy on people and gather information if they want to? Yes, it does. Since it is an opt-in system, I'm comfortable with it. No serious site will place itself in the .kids.us domain. Those serious websites that do will no doubt also maintain a regular version.

Excellent!

[mr.nicholas]

I'm surprised: an intelligent and implementable system actually came out of Congress.

Of course, I wouldn't want to be NeuStar. That's a hell of a responsibility; to police an entire subdomain for appropriateness. And I wonder what sort of liability issues that creates. If I let my 10-year-old browse at will through .kids.us (he goes through a squid proxy right now that defaults to denied [I have an ACL of acceptable domains]) and he comes across something inappropriate, may I then sue NeuStar for allowing that exposure?

As it stands now, my son's email account receives close to 50 spams a day, 10 of which are sexually revolting. But because of the nature of the beast, I cannot press charges against any of the companies that originate the mail (if I could find them, that is). It would be refreshing to to have a "Kid Safe" label and have it mean something*.

* Unfortunately to get any organization to truly "Certify" that (and be able to TRUST that certification), there must be real and hurtful penalties attached.

Monitoring.

[perlyking]

How are they going to monitor it. What about a site that is about furry teddies one day and porn the next.

Okay I hear the jokes...

[El Camino SS]

But honestly, this will be difficult to regulate. And more than likely the pedophiles and grown men that cruise with names like Soccergirl342 will be there in masse. The way things are going now, the FBI is going to have to be in every chat room.

God, I hope that they do something right for a change on the internet before some place like adultsexplayhouse.com or donkeysweat.org decides to move into the kid market... and sue ICANN for "their rightful domain name" on .kids for kidsfun.kids.

So for all of you /.ers that think this is crap, or have some nutty agenda about having a kids safe internet, I suggest you go play legos with your cousins today, and then think about if they are mentally prepared yet for what some of these bastards will plan to do with them. You'll change your mind soon enough.

Re:So how long before

[Spyffe]

Mod the parent back up - this is valid political commentary!

This new domain is an excellent opportunity for propaganda. The government could keep all kinds of groups outside of .kids.us for spurious reasons, and children would never be exposed to those groups' opinions.

And what about foreign sites? No child would be able to read the Chinese People's Daily, say. This system could be seen as just another part of an indoctrination system involving schools, and soon television.

Although I tend to view the primary goal of this not as being for propaganda, but rather to satisfy parents, the view of it as a propaganda mechanism is NOT flamebait!

Privacy and the COPA

[InvaderSkooge]

Doesn't making the kids disclose information in the browser violate the Children Online Privacy Protection Act? Or does the .kids.us domain get exempt? Besides, why do they need people to identify? Are they afraid terrorists are going to use .kids.us to communicate (oh, that would be funny, wouldn't it?)? I can't conceive how they could hope to keep pedophiles away with that.

On the other hand, I'm sure a pedophile could run a site, and get lots of leads.

No internet, then

[TuringTest]

NeuStar would be expected to police the subdomain to ensure it remains free of inappropriate content. Web sites in the domain would be prohibited from linking to sites outside it, and they could not set up chat rooms, instant messaging (news - web sites) or other interactive services unless they could certify that they did not expose children to pedophiles or pose other risks.

For me, it means that only sites designed specifically for the .kids domain would be allowed. And, the no-external-linking and no-forum-chat-messaging gives an experience completelly different to what Internet is, and more close to TV or educational CDs. What will happen when those children have later to use the real Internet?

Enforcement?

[YrWrstNtmr]

What powers will the controlling group have when (not if) someone breaks the content rules?

What recourse do I have when my kids happen upon content that should not be there in .kids.us?

.kids.US ?

[YrWrstNtmr]

Are kids in the US the only ones befitting a "safe" surfing experience?

I realize that it would be nigh impossible to create a worldide standard, but theis tastes a little of "screw everyone else".

Re:my favorite goodies

[InvaderSkooge]

Actually, this is a really good point, not about pokemon or digimon, kids don't nessecarily like that any more, but about the fact that all the stuff kids love will dissapear. All the stuff I see 13 yr old kids do on the net is IM friends, play stupid flash games and play Neopets (part Pokemon, part Evercrack and all html), of which only the bad flash games are okay, and they'd still be moderated. It'd be way easier just to get rid of the cable when the kid is on, and acheive the same result.

Re:Questions

[RailGunner]

What's more important, is exactly what counts as "hate speech"? Who decides what is "hate speech"?

If a child's web site is dedicated to history, would commentary on the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor be considered "Hate Speech" since it might offend Japanese kids?

Or what about a current events story on the conflict between Isreal and the PLO? Would the other side denounce any opinion given as "hate speech"?

Or more recent - there are some that consider it "hate speech" to talk ill of Al Qaeda (despite the fact that their goal is the destruction of the US).

Sounds like this may be just another example of political correctness gone too far. Why shield kids from any speech, even if it is vile, racist garbage? Wouldn't it be better to point out to the kids that racist organizations exist, but are wrong because they don't believe that All Men (and women) are created Equal?

good try, who will (really) control

[fermion]

This really solves a lot of problems. It leaves the internet in general free to do what it does. It bypasses ICANN and puts the subdomain in the control of a U.S. company beholden to the U.S. government, and, most importantly, it does not impose U.S. law on the rest of the world. As much bashing as the U.S. congress has gotten here, I think they now deserve a conditional kudos for having a clue. I say conditional because they do hav a tendency to sneak in little easter eggs that come back to bite us in the butt.

I, however, don't know if this will be successful. Parent who don't wish to monitor their children, like those that complain about South Park and the like, will complain that the system is not perfect when a nude painting inadvertently makes it into a discussion about classic art. Christian fundamentalist will try subvert the intention of the domain by using it to promote their religious beliefs. The fast food chains will dominate the advertising in a continuing attempt to brand our children.

But, all in all, a good attempt and a gold star for congress. I am really not trying to be ironic. It is just we need to first teach our children to think. Sometimes I think we are so concerned with nipples and penises that allow equally dangerous, but more socially accepted material. Of course I agree that stuff like goatsx should be banned, but perhaps also this Jerry Falwell propaganda against muslims.

Re:Not censored!

[Elledan]

Content isn't altered, content is accepted or rejected.

Which is merely another description of censorship, no?

Remember, moderation is always the enforcing of the opinions of a group or a single individual by removing 'unsuitable' opinions &c. You can not possibly consider moderation of whatever source of information to be purely objective.

For this reason there is no distinct difference between censorship and moderation, since both define the restricting of a person's or a group's access to a source of information.

Also, with censorship, content isn't altered. The content is simply 'moderated', meaning that some of the content is rendered unwatchable, unreadable or is made in some other way inaccessible.

Re:This is the way to do this kind of thing...

[GnomeKing]

Maybe with ipv6 we can be a little smarter and dole out adult ips to 6969:6969:6969 or sommat.

Thats not such a stupid idea...

With the current internet address system, anyone can have any ip

Would it be SO bad if there was a bill passed that anyone serving adult material had to have their IP's in a certain range?

There are obvious reasons why restrictions shouldnt be placed on the dns'ed addresses, but could they be enforced by whoever-it-is-who-hands-out-ip's?
"You can have this IP as long as you dont display sexually explicit images/movies as defined by section 3(c)"?

It would mean that making the net safe for kids would be as simple as blocking that netblock
Anyone displaying material which is deemed inappropriate and NOT within the IP range could have their IP address revoked...

I'm very much against internet censorship by the government, but can anyone think of a good reason why IP groups such as that would be a bad idea?

Re:Uhhh...michael, did you even read the bill?

[the_2nd_coming]

you are making somthing out of nothing. any one who has an appropriate page can get on the .kids.us page domain. and even if teh congress decides those criteria, they are still fightable (you know, everything that is taught in highschool and below MUST be part of the domain, they can not push a creationist agenda etc.) I like this. I will install this plug-in on my son's computer soon that way, he can not accidentaly get to sites taht have nasty things on them. also, this might be usful in the library fight. you set up a bunch of computers with this plug in and then you have an over 16 system. then you don't get kids going to porn sites and adults can get access to the whole internet.

I can see this...

[munition]

...severely limiting research, especially into some computer related matters.

I know that most of my life on the 'net when I was 18 or under was spent learning about computer security (or lack thereof), chats that were computer oriented, etc. I do not know of many hacker sites that would not be labeled as obscene in language or non-offensive (because the material deals with possible "illegal" subject matters).

At what point to we say that we are sacrificing knowledge for smut?

I am all for protecting kids and making sure they are not exposed to "adult" material, but that should be the job of the parent, not the government, not the religious institution, not the ISP, etc. There is a lot of material that I find perfectly suitable for a child under 18 to read other than Disney. However, it does not sound like this moderation system will allow children to read about certain topics that are legitimate.

So my next question: Will it block sites like "boy-band" fan sites, or "pop diva" sites (i.e. Brittney S., Christina A., etc)? If not, why not? Half of the porn email spam I get deal with these two females.

Not a laughing matter

[dnoyeb]

I know everyone is gushing over this as if its a good idea. Just look deeper. Look at whats happening today and you can see what will happen in the future. Let me help you.

1. servers in the kids.us domain immediately come under attack by crackers hell bent on inserting pr0n into those sites.

2. Parents attempt to sue Neustar.

3. Supreme court rules they cannot be sued and complaintants must sue the US Government (which one cannot legally sue)

4. Parents turn their fury to the individual server administrators.

5. Administrators can not keep up with all the bugs in the software and request help or protection from the us government.

6. FUD ensues.

7. White house demands new Cyber Terrorism laws.

8. DHD creates new Cyber Terrorism division.

9. more freedoms shot down in the name of "the children."

You can divise any scenario you like. The one common thread is that these servers will be major targets for crackers and they will succeed time and time again.

Good idea or Pork Barrel politics?

[The Evil Couch]

The bill would place a ".kids" subdomain under the control of NeuStar Inc., the Washington telecommunications firm that won the right to manage the ".us" country-code domain last fall.
The Senate added a provision that would give NeuStar an automatic two-year extension of its contract in return for managing the ".kids" subdomain, a Dorgan aide said.

it's really not that well thought out of a concept, after all, most adults aren't smart enough to set up a method to limit kids to only the .kids.us sites, and it's not practical even if they did do it, since many of the most useful website fall under their own domains at .coms, like yahoo, google and various news sites.

what this amounts to is government sponsored good press for NeuStar. your tax dollars at work, supporting corporations.

I Agree: Well Done Congress

[FreeUser]

As much bashing as the U.S. congress has gotten here, I think they now deserve a conditional kudos for having a clue. I say conditional because they do hav a tendency to sneak in little easter eggs that come back to bite us in the butt.

As one who routinely, and scathingly, bashes congress here and elsewhere, I have to agree. This appears to have been a rare instance of insightful, intelligent, reasoned, and balanced governance, something we have seen far too little of lately.

I think this actually has a good chance of being quite successful, and school firewalls can easilly be designed to only access .kids.us, leaving the school surfing of the 'net relatively reasonably without having to employ censorship software whose motives are often suspect (they filter political as well as objectionable content, usually but not always with a pro-right-wing bias, etc.).

As long as the criteria, process, and oversight of the selection of material that is allowed in the .kids.us domain is transparent and public, this will work reasonably well. Yes, there will be politics and debate, but it will be open and, if not always fair, at least reasonably democratic (quite possibly reminiscent of local school board politics). If not, it will just become another dysfunctional censorship project run amok.

However, I am actually fairly optomistic that some lessons may have been learned, and it will be the former, not the latter, which happens. In any event, this is a good, well balanced start to solving a problem without, for once, trampling on either the constitution or the most promising new technology to emerge in a hundred years, namely the Internet itself.

Opposite Approach

[sjlutz]

I don't understand this approach, it is exactly the opposite way that we work in the "real world." I know that this has been said here before, but I would like to point out my view points.
For example, we do not create seperate retail stores that are "just for kids" that contain kid-safe stuff (don't confuse kidmarketing stores like the Kids Gap stores). Instead, we create special stores that are allowed to sell non-kid friendly product. (Examples: Adult Bookstore, Bars, Strip Clubs, etc).
The best method is to say we are not kid-friendly as opposed to we are kid friendly.
Why is/should the internet be treated differently? Here's a real world analogy. There is a park at the corner of my street. Imagine putting up a big sign that says we are totally kid-friendly at the park. Would you (as a parent) feel safe leaving your kid at the park? Of course not, any pedifile (sp) could walk into the park too. The only way to keep it safe is to ensure that only kids go into the park. But on the internet, that's impossible to do. Why would I, as a parent, (and not being technical) let my kids roam freely in a place that is the best known target to pedifiles?