Kid-Safe Domain Created

Jadecristal writes "The Washington Post announces that President Bush has signed legislation to create a .kids.us domain. The legislation mandates that those with a .kids.us site not be allowed to link to any site outside the .kids.us domain." At the very least, it makes filtering easy.

Comments

Hrm...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if anyone will register http://nek.kids.us :)

Re:Hrm...

[Alsee]

What I'm really curious about is the .kids.them domain.

-

Not the first time

[brianvan]

Apparently, .cn has similar restrictions...

so?

[garcia]

I put a picture of two people taking from Action Pics on www.thehun.com.

Or better yet, goatsex?

What are they going to do then? I didn't link anywhere and someone else in kids.us could link to me...

Re:so?

[rsborg]

What are they going to do then? I didn't link anywhere and someone else in kids.us could link to me...

So now, are you .kids? If so your URL will be de-listed, since you are doing the illegal outside linking. If not then they couldn't link to you anyway. Either way someone would get delisted for outside linking or hosting inappropriate content.

Of course this raises the question: what is inappropriate content?

Re:so?

[FyRE666]

[Original poster posits linking to goatse.cx]

Of course this raises the question: what is inappropriate content?

I'm pretty sure that goatse would be classed slightly inappropriate for small children. I mean, christ I'm over 30 and I found it traumatic enough to add an entry pointing goatse.cx->127.0.0.1 on my nameserver!

Re:so?

[brsmith4]

You'd simply be an asshole if you did and your site would probably be shut down. I think it's great that there will be a domain for children's web sites. It will make parents' jobs easier when it comes to keeping track of what they are doing and making sure they do not come across things they shouldn't.

Re:so?

[Montreal Geek]

[...] and making sure they do not come across things they shouldn't.

I don't get it. Why is this society so obsessed with the concept that children are some sort of retarded subhuman species?

I grew up with intelligent parents that cared. I was never denied any soure of information, regardless of how ridiculous and/or "innapropriate", but was taught to use my brain to discard garbage on my own.

My children will get the same opportunity.

I've grown up to be a responsible, sane adult who isn't mind-controled by the media. Obviously, being able to use one's own jugment to qualify what's out there is not a desired objective of the governments.

They'd much rather have drones who consume the information that was deemed good for them without question.

-- MG

Re:so?

[morgajel]

I've grown up to be a responsible, sane adult who isn't mind-controled by the media.

welcome to the club- now there's 5 of us.

Re:so?

[catscan2000]

I'm totally with you on that :-). The only thing my parents "sheltered" me from was violence, not naked bodies. I agree with my parents' assessments on that. People are not repulsive, but violence is.

Yet, although we are supposed to be training our children to become productive members of society, many fellow Americans feel the need to hide as much of the world as they can from their children, ultimately putting their children at a competitive disadvantage to others and forcing them to play catch-up in college and afterward. Children are smart little buggers, and by bringing them up to become responsible members of society, it's one less thing for them to worry about later down the road.

Teaching one-sided views and cramming it down childrens' throats raises really warped kids, and I'm not talking about OS/2 ;-). It's actually a strategy that power-hungry institutions use to gain power and/or profit. WWII Germany did it, the Taliban did it, Communist China did it, and, as one of the most glaring examples in modern society, religion did and still does it. Let kids make up their own minds, but be there when they need you and provide sound guidence balanced with clear reasoning. The more kids who actually understand the reasoning behind America's freedoms and the importance of maintaining civilization, the better :-), and hopefully less violence and crime. Telling them to do things "because I said so" is counterproductive and become things that they rebel against in their mid-to-late teens. I'd love to see kids rebelling against their parents on things like what Operating System they like best when they get to that phase in their lives rather than rebelling against what their parents said on drug, alcohol, credit, graffiti, and gambling abuse, wouldn't you ;-)? Kids in LUGs/WUGs/MUGs, not gangs! ;-). That would also lead to fewer a*hole managers in our workforce once they reach age, since they'll know how to reason rather than just using their powers to cram stuff down peoples' throats like their parents taught them. Perhaps this is wishful thinking on my part ;-).

Re:so?

[njchick]

You cannot do it for the same reasons why you cannot post those images inline in your comment on Slashdot. The reasons are policy, security and ownership of the domain. kids.us is not your domain, and neither is slashdot.org (unless you are hidden CmdrTaco).

Re:so?

[the_other_one]

They should probably also strive to not corrupt kids by monitoring sontent for spelling.

Re:so?

[Montreal Geek]

Not all parents want their 8 yr. olds to stumble across porn on the web.

That's my point! Why the hell not?

For one, most 8 year olds will, when faced with typical porn, go either "Ewww" or laugh out; but if they understand the basic idea of sexuality will understand what it's all about and just not be interrested in such imagery.

I can assure you that if some kid is digging for stuff on Harry Potter, and stumbles on some porn site, he'll just do like most of us and curse at the stupidity of not finding what he's after.

Unless, of course, you want to pretend that sex doesn't exist to your kids until it's much too late. Or perhaps you prefer to think that all humans are asexuate drones until some arbitary age?

Your kids will learn about sex. They will get access to imagery and texts. They will experiment amongst themselves.

Would you rather they understood nothing and be unprepared to make critical and moral judgement on their own?

I knew what sex was, and how it worked, and why people were so interrested in it young enough that I can't possibly remember being told specifically. That made me an accepting adult who is not completely fscked up with what is arguably the principal function of a living being.

While I don't particularly enjoy porn myself, I understand many do, and cannot think of single reason why that would be "bad" in any way.

My kids will be taught that some people like to be entertained by watching depictions of monsters horribly mutilating stupid teenagers, some by depicions of crime fighters doing impossible stunts to defeat the nefarious nemesis, and some by depictions of sexual activity both mundane and off-the-wall. All of them carfuly scripted (for the high quality stuff) fiction.

They'll get to decide which (if any) they enjoy for themselves.

-- MG

Re:so?

[brsmith4]

Wow, that's really messed up. The fact that you would LET your child inadvertently stumble across pornographic material, under the assumption(1) that they would ignore it, while you are probably more than capable of blocking it, is just terrifying. Maybe I don't want MY kid learning it from your kid. Have you ever thought of that? I would be the parent that would be calling you during dinner because my 8 year old son was repeating something that your child said. Let me tell you something, there is an age for everything. You need to be 16 to drive, 18 to vote and 21 to drink in most places in the USA. I can't quite put an age limit on sex ed, but 8 is ridiculous. 11 or twelve is probably a good age to learn the basics.

Would you let your child watch R-rated horror movies when they are 6, 7 or 8 years old? I know a couple kids that were exposed to things way too soon and are really fscked up right now. They can thank their parents later in life and your children can thank you too.

I knew what sex was, and how it worked, and why people were so interrested in it young enough that I can't possibly remember being told specifically. That made me an accepting adult who is not completely fscked up with what is arguably the principal function of a living being.

What does learning early have to do with being accepting? Nothing. I learned about sex a little later than most. I was kept away from those movies and shows that were laced and laden with it. I am very accepting of people of different orientation, etc. Your point in this regard is moot.

(1) Assumption - N - def - Mother of all fuck-ups - deriv. - V - assume

Re:so?

[Spunk]

It's good to see that at least some people have some sense.

Thank you.

Re:so?

[toriver]

Would you let your child watch R-rated horror movies when they are 6, 7 or 8 years old?

I find it sickening that you compare learning about perfectly normal bodily functions with watching horror movies.

Trying to restrict information, images, language etc. does not make something go away. Don't pretend it does, that is just stupidity.

(Also, because of hormone-like food additives, girls occasionally hit puberty at 8 or 9. Do you want to keep them in the dark, or that they "learn" from a "nice uncle" with a bag of sweets in the park?)

Re:so?

[Montreal Geek]

Yes.

My point, actually, was that it's the parents who are problematic, not the 'net.

I, in fact, agree with the .kids.us initiative-- it's the very first semi-intelligent initiative of the US government on the topic at all.

I don't agree that children should be restricted to a playpen where Ronald McDonald and Mattel are going to be the sole influences, but at least that solution doesn't attempt to coerce anything, it just creates the playpen.

What is scaring me is that there will very likely be a very great number of parents who will restrict their children to that playpen in order to avoid having to actually talk to them or spend time with them.

I'm sure this will produce good, docile little consumers who have been exposed to nothing but the American Way (made in Taiwan).

Oh, well.

-- MG

Re:so?

[brsmith4]

When the time comes, teach them. I am tired of this let-children-see/do/say-as-they-please mentality that is quite frankly, fucking up the next generation of kids that are popping out. I don't know about you, but have you noticed they aren't particularly bright anymore?

Children like to participate and be a part of adult things even though they aren't adults. This is what worries me about my child learning about certain things too early. It was very recently that a little kindergarten girl was caught giving oral sex to one of her classmates somewhere out west. Granted she learned it from being abused by her father, but how would you feel if this type of behavior proliferated and your child was caught in the middle. I know the people of slashdot believe heavily in the freedom of information. However, children should have limited freedom when it comes to certain information. They are on a need-to-know basis and quite frankly, they don't need to know... yet.

Bad solution.

[prizzznecious]

It would be much more sensible to create a domain of non-kid-"safe" content. That would facilitate filtering without creating the need for current content providers to make redundant registrations.

Also, this will probably end up in a flurry of anti-cybersquatting legislation, as companies vie with individuals to grab all of the good names in the new subdivision.

All in all, the wrong idea.

Re:Bad solution.

[lpontiac]

It would be much more sensible to create a domain of non-kid-"safe" content.

I propose we call it .com

Re:Bad solution.

[LostCluster]

.xxx would be easy to block, but how do you keep all the smut contained within .xxx? People will start moving their porn sites to .ca, .uk, .cc, .at, .to, whatever other country code where US law has no control. By making sure that .kids.us will always remain clean, with strict bouncers throwing any troublemakers out, you can set a kid up with a browser that can only travel within .kids.us and know there is no way they can surf into smut...

Re:Bad solution.

[Anonymous Coward]

You miss the point.

The reason for the creation of a .kids domain is because any attempt at creating an adult only domain and REQUIRING adult oriented sites to go there is a 1st amendment violation. This has been hashed out beyond recognition. A .kids domain that is Opt IN is legal. a .XXX Domain that is required, is not.

Re:Bad solution.

[Tri0de]

This is similar to what I've been proposing all along. we need the .xxx domain;

My reasoning- anything on the .XXX cannot be prosecuted for obscenity or any such thing (perhaps except for kiddie porn).

Anything OUTSIDE of the .XXX domain might (or might not) be game for 'community standards' lawsuits, which is what I think will happen eventually once the prudes take a cue from the anti-Nazi stuff on Yahoo crowd. I mean you can't ban porn from .com or .org, BUT since there would be a 'safe' place for it (both in the sense of those who want to block it and those who want to find it) there would be less of a need to defend sleazy people on free speech principles.

Re:Bad solution.

[susano_otter]

Isn't .ca the TLD for California? I thought Canada was .ca.uk, or .ca.fr, or something.

Re:Bad solution.

[Jucius Maximus]

"It would be much more sensible to create a domain of non-kid-"safe" content. That would facilitate filtering without creating the need for current content providers to make redundant registrations."

Yeah, but soccer moms want to know their kids are in the 'safe zone' as opposed to 'not in a danger zone' . It's whitelisting versus blacklisting.

On a philosophical level, I do prefer the creation of a 'mature content' domain but I don't see how it could be implemented successfully.

Re:Bad solution.

[Jucius Maximus]

"Isn't .ca the TLD for California? I thought Canada was .ca.uk, or .ca.fr, or something."

No, .ca is Canada.

And there are subdomains: .bc.ca refers to British Columbia, Canada.

If I recall correctly, .ca is also a subdomain for .us - Meaning .ca.us would refer to california, USA. I don't think california has a TLD at all.

Re:Bad solution.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

any attempt at creating an adult only domain and REQUIRING adult oriented sites to go there is a 1st amendment violation.

Hear hear!

Like cities, the Internet is a "place" that was created BY adults FOR adults. As such it contains hazardous-to-kids analogs of traffic, industrial plants, political battlegrounds, pickup bars, red-light districts, casinos, marketplaces for dangerous items, and other attractive nuisances. Indeed, these produce much of its value and utility.

If a child is not mature enough to be allowed unescorted in the seamier neighborhoods of your local downtown, that kid is also not mature enough to be unsecorted on the internet. And trying to childproof the entirety of the internet (or all but a reserved area) is just as futile, damaging, and illegal as trying to childproof the entirety of adult society.

Creating an explicit childproof fenced-in playground, on the other hand, is just fine. With one possible exception...

I hope that either the prohibition on linking out of kids.us is relaxed to allow linking to kids. of any country that sets up a similar domain with compatable rules, or (perhaps better) that sites in other countries that are willing to abide by the US rules are allowed to register in kids.us.

Re:Bad solution.

[ShadowDrake]

I just see it as very inefficient to create a "closed set" domain, because so much of the Web's usefulness depends on free linking.

Many news sites, for example, are essentially "link farms", pointing people to articles of interest. Is that not what /. is? If you wanted to make a kid-friendly one in .kids.us, you'd either have to mirror everything within the domain (logistical nightmare, possible lawsuits), or take your chances of being shut down for linking to the outside world. The effect would be that you'd have a hard time creating a high-quality specimen of that sort of site.

It would be difficult to make a valuable site in that domain without a lot of your own content.

Wonderful... a new playground, tailoring the flexibility of the Web for the needs of the large media concerns.

What happened to all those "site rating schemes" that were supposed to be built into our browsers many moons ago? You want kid business, set those flags, encourage the sites you link to to set their flags, and use the browser controls. If there's a problem with misleading flags (maliciously), consider a false-advertising claim.

Re:Bad solution.

[LostCluster]

The problem was, so many sites ignored it that it became ineffective. "My browser can only surf MSN sites" was the most common symptom of somebody who turned on the Content Advsior in IE without realizing it.

Re:Bad solution.

[shaitand]

The problem is that the kids are smarter than the parents, and this will continue to be a problem. When the kids are grown, their kids will be more intelligent. Adapting, evolving call it what you will. I don't know about you, but I can knock out content advisor without a password, and without a hack, all you have to do is edit the registry. Hell 5yr olds hack the registry these days while their parents are still on the phone with tech support figuring out what their mouse is so they can follow the instructions to activate content advisor. Most tech savvy parents are intellectuals and are more in tune with reality (imho) and thus are less apt to be as heavy into content restriction.

Re:Bad solution.

[susano_otter]

In Soviet Russia, we call this "Canadian Joke".

Re:Bad solution.

[shaitand]

I agree and disagree both. You see trust goes both ways, a child's feelings and opinions are certainly not less important than the parents, in fact they are more important. In any individuals life, child or adult, it's that individuals opinions/thoughts/feelings that have the greatest impact. Ultimately, your child can and will (if and only if that trust is not there) bypass the whatever restrictions or authority you impose. You cannot possibly keep tabs on them every moment of the day. There are too many "friends" for you to find out about and forbide them from going and visiting them all (and forbide doesn't actually stop in any case). So the trust does have to go both ways, and respect (far too often confused with fear). If your child trusts you to be open and listen, to be fair. And respects your decisions, not just believing you want whats best for them, but knowing your a good judge of this and have shown them a good example. Then you can trust them in turn. Porn or smoking cadavers doesn't really matter in this scenerio. If they know what these things are, they've been educated on them, forbidding them doesn't accomplish sheltering nor is it valid as a "they aren't mature enough to handle" argument, since they've already been exposed to these things. Personally, I believe a child who is educated on these things is less apt to seek them out. And on the other side of things, kids will be kids, they have an insatible curiousity, as much as your instinct is to shelter and protect them, even with a perfect trust, they'll stray from the dictated path, this too is essential to them developing a sense of themselves and who they are... and yes, learning about things that you've sought to shelter them from.

I agree, Mature kids accept Mature parents wishes, provided the parents have established the kids trust. (The way I read your comment it seemed you felt only the parents trust was an issue, but I could have interpreted incorrectly). I also agree children should grow by learning, but I think they should grow by learning everything a parent can teach or lead them to learn, or help them to find on their own. Including the nightmares, arguably, most importantly the nightmares. Those nightmares are things that parents should go over with their children in a genuine open discussion, not a "do this" "don't do that" fashion, but a genuine talk of ups and downs and various opinions on issues, including your own beliefs and why those are important. So that before your child stumbles on and plays Wolfenstein 3D on his friends old p1 box, he knows of the suffering of the jews and the truths of the issue and you can not have to worry about it and how it might be affecting him/her, because YOU know they know the real issues behind those things and aren't being influenced by simple pixels.

Re:Bad solution.

[Alsee]

That's a false analogy. A child could be physically harmed in the [seamier neighborhoods], while none could come to a child who stumbled onto dirtyxxx.com

A child may get killed in a seamier neighborhood, but stumbling onto dirtyxxx.com could soil the child's eternal soul!

Disclaimer: This post contains sarcasm. Handle with care. Not for children under 3 years of age. Do not attempt to operate heavy machinery. Do not insert into ear canal. This disclaimer may not be removed under penalty of law.

-

Re:Bad solution.

[susano_otter]

Not so much ignorant as bigoted. Certainly audacious, though.

for those who read...

[c0ol]

you have to agree to the TOS to have the domain, and they can shut u down. this is a moderated domain

Re:for those who read...

[LX.onesizebigger]

However, realizing what a large and profitable market kids are, I wouldn't be too surprised if this gains great interest among companies who want to profit from this (personally I think brainwashing ads from the toy and entertainment industries is far more damaging to a kid than nude people could ever be, but thats beside the point).

If this is indeed the case, how long before this domain is as impossible to oversee or manage as the rest of the Internet is today? I see scalability issues. You can always enforce the requirement of no outside links by supplementing the system with software, but moderating the contents? Good luck.

This is just a whitelist

[duras]

So any site under kids.us is safe for kids. Sites are only safe for kids if they're under kids.us. Why not just create a whitelist of kids-safe sites. In order to get on the list, you must not link to sites that aren't on the whitelist.

Works out the same, but eliminates the cost of the domain to the website owner.

Re:This is just a whitelist

[LostCluster]

Because downloading and using a whitelist creates a hassle for the users. (You remember users, they're the people we work for, etc.) It's much simpler to have a rule... if it ends in ".kids.us" it must be safe.

Re:This is just a whitelist

[buswolley]

they will decide that the only thing that is safe in the kids domain, is disney, toys r us, and walmart. Commercialze the kids, and quickly. Pretty soon the law will be that if you aren't 18 then you have to serf in a particular domain. or maybe im full of it.

Re:This is just a whitelist

[pmineiro]

So any site under kids.us is safe for kids. Sites are only safe for kids if they're under kids.us. Why not just create a whitelist of kids-safe sites. In order to get on the list, you must not link to sites that aren't on the whitelist.

Works out the same, but eliminates the cost of the domain to the website owner.

Well, the computational complexity of your solution is O(n) in space, whereas Bush's solution is O(1) space.

Looks like George W. Bush is a better software engineer than you are!

-- p

Re:This is just a whitelist

[wytcld]

If you can more economically run a whitelist, have at it. In the kids.us case the domain registration comes with a centralized content-policing mechanism, paid for by the registration fees. (George Bush kids.us?) Anyway there's nothing to stop you from starting a value-added business to whitelist sites for children or people with, say, religious or political beliefs which are easily offended by reality - you've just got to come up with a revenue model. If you charge sites to be on your list, and then you de-list a site, be prepared for legal retaliation. So you probably want to charge the end users. Okay, how? Do you set up a large proxy server farm and give them a browser jimmied to run all its queries through that just as long as their dues are paid up? If this is the only browser installed for their kid's account on their system, this would probably work. And you'd also get valuable tracking data on where the kid went. But why are they going to pay you for this when you can just lock a browser to kids.us for free? The difference here is kids.us can avoid delisting lawsuits because the prez and federal law are behind them.

Re:This is just a whitelist

[SCHecklerX]

And how, as a parent, would you firewall that?

uh, gee

[Anonymous Coward]

It sure is good to know that our children will be safe from being accidentally redirected to dangerous, kid-unfriendly sites like www.cnn.com when they're hanging around nickelodeon.kids.us. Way to go, GWB.

Actually, i'm just being cynical, i guess that is a pretty good idea.. a kid-safe playground that you can let your children run free on without any worry they'll run across anything "bad". I'm liking this idea the more i think about it, but i'm worried about what happens when they start deciding what is and isn't "kid-safe".. for example, what happens the first time someone puts something that really isn't kid-appropriate up on kids.us.. or what happens the first time that someone attempts to claim that something like, say, the web page for that Nickelodeon special about kids who have gay parents, and the intolerance they face (you know, the one that all the child psychologists lauded and all the religious groups tried to have nickelodeon boycotted for) declared "unsafe for kids.us"...

I wonder if the fact that actual laws have to be passed to introduce any changes in the administration of the .us domain is the reason there's absolutely nothing there.

Re:uh, gee

[LostCluster]

What prevents a kid-safe version of the news going up at cnn.kids.us?

Nothing at all.

Re:uh, gee

[LX.onesizebigger]

Good evening kids. Nothing bad happened at all in the world today. The World Trade Center is intact. Bin Laden is really just a bearded old man. He is not mean. Nobody wants to hurt anybody. The President is good friends with the other nice guy in Iraq. Goodnight, kids.

Kids-safe news? I wish it were possible...

Re:uh, gee

[LostCluster]

You haven't seen Linda Ellerbee's Nick News programs, have you? They explain what actually is happening, while avoiding the outragous overstatements adults tend to make.

Re:uh, gee

[LX.onesizebigger]

No, I haven't, but yes of course, if we are going to be serious (as difficult as it is), I know there are good examples of news for kids. Here in Sweden there has been at least one good example of that. It's actually more worthwhile than the news for the grownups. I'm not sure it would meet U.S. standards with respect to 'protecting the children' though.

Re:uh, gee

[nule.org]

I get your cynicism, but I'd have to say that if I had kids there's no way in hell I'd let them go to cnn.com. Too many pictures of people blown into little tiny chunks in various places in the world. I'll save such imagery for my FPS games, thank you very much.

Seriously though - does Yahoo and CNN really have to show such graphic pictures? Stories about X many people being shot up or blown up are enough to make anyone cry without pictures of tormented loved ones and juicy bits everywhere.

It's not that I don't want to acknowledge that it happens. I just really don't need to see the GIBs. Doh! I'm way off topic!

Re:uh, gee

[geekee]

The point is, the govt. is leaving the choice up to the parents. They're setting up a kid safe domain, but they're not saying this is the only place where kids can surf. It's up to the parents whether or not they want to restrict access to this domain. When the parents think they're old enough, they can let other content through.

Re:uh, gee

[shaitand]

*sighs* Parents censoring their children is the worst form of child abuse I've ever seen.

Re:uh, gee

[cicatrix1]

It's all about perspective.

Regardless of sexual orientation, that damn image is from a perspective NO ONE should ever see.

Re:uh, gee

[shaitand]

I'm not saying expose them to filth, I'm saying don't censor it. There is a difference. Believe it or not children are quite intelligent and learn very differently. They CAN make a distinction between what goes on outside the house and what goes on within. I've actually met 18yr old girls who still aren't fully aware of what sex is because they have been heavily sheltered. This isn't neccesarily bad in and of itself when looked at through a very narrow scope. But do you realize these same girls are not equiped to identify when someone is trying to take advantage of them because they've been sheltered from learning about incidents were this happens and when put in the real world they may know about these things but they are "it's never going to happen to me" issues. This is just one example of something that happens almost weekly if not daily to a female in the real world. Kids do believe their parents are all knowing at those ages where most people believe they should be sheltered. If they aren't sheltered from discovering reality, they will ask you about it at an age where they will actually listen to your input rather than at an age where they will specifically rebel against it. You may not be feel comfortable discussing sex with your 6yr old child, but would you prefer you bring it up when their 13, they've probably already had sex behind your back, and they'll stop using condoms mostly because they can sense you genuinely want them to and they are rebels to develope their own sense of identity. Or when their 6, it may be a little bit uncomfortable, but at 6 they are more likely to actually accept your input.

Re:uh, gee

[God! Awful 2]

I don't really follow your argument, as it jumps around a lot. I certainly don't think that children should be sheltered from sex until they are 18. But I also don't think that they need to find out about some of the evils of this world until they are old enough to understand why they happen. And I don't want to expose them to dangerous ideas until they are old enough to think critically.

As for protecting the safety of children, I'd rather tell them simply "don't take candy from strangers" rather than "don't take candy from strangers because they might abduct you, then rape and kill you."

-a

Re:uh, gee

[0x0d0a]

What's wrong with it? They rarely glorify violence (oh, movies and TV series do, but not normally the regular media), and the "squirm" response when someone dies horribly is *healthy* -- it means that you're likely to avoid such scenerios.

Keeping people in the dark about things that aren't immediately "comfortable" or "pleasant" doesn't do much to help them.

Re:uh, gee

[0x0d0a]

"protecting the children"

I'd love to know how "protecting the children" came to be associated with "censoring what youth can be made aware of". I'd personally say that a nationwide attempt at suppression and lying would damage, not "protect" a child.

Of course, that's just me, and I'm not a fundamentalist Baptist, so what do I know?

Re:uh, gee

[Evil Adrian]

The Lion King should not have been rated G. There were parts that were too violent and serious for a young child to be viewing.

Re:uh, gee

[lfourrier]

as practically all disney, and all fairies tales, which are somewhat traumatic for really young childs.

Re:uh, gee

[gamgee5273]

Hmmm...I respectfully disagree.

After all, Dr. No was rated G when it first came out (I think From Russia with Love was, too). Kids are some of the best judges of looking at black & white - Scar was evil, Simba was good. No grey there - kids are able to handle that. Mufasa's death is no different than Bambi's mother's death. Hell, I saw The Rescuers when I was three and Star Wars when I was four. The crocodiles in The Rescuers scared me - to a point. Vader scared me - to a point.

But after the movies ended I was able to walk away from it. Of course, it helped that I knew I could always ask questions of my parents...maybe not all of us have been able to do that. I'm not saying that your relationship with your parents is like that, but I think that we've had ample evidence of parents who are uncomfortable having questions asked of them and their kids realizing that. When that happens, a kid simply bottles that imagery and those concerns up and have no way to ask about them.

An excellent discussion about kids and their need for violent play is Gerard Jones's book Killing Monsters. I highly recommend it.

Re:uh, gee

[Evil Adrian]

Now that we're talking about it, the rating system is fucking ridiculous. It assumes everyone has the same standards. A PG-13 movie should not be viewed by anyone under 13? What if I have an exceptionally mature 8 year old? 7 year old? Where do you draw the line? You can't. I wish they'd just say "hey, in this movie, people fuck (but you don't see dangly parts) and snort coke."

Not like any rating system MATTERS, because nobody actually watches the film beforehand to screen the content from their child's eyes. I saw people taking children that must have been no more than 10 years old to see Jackass: The Movie on opening night. C'mon, mom and dad, use your fucking brain -- you're gonna let a 10-year old-girl watch a grown man stuff a toy car up his ass?? I wanted to beat her father up something fierce.

Re:uh, gee

[shaitand]

But that is just some slashdotter saying that, When I hear high schools, middle schools, and libraries chiming that tune, then I'll start to listen.

Re:uh, gee

[larien]

I guess we're kinda spoiled in the UK, as we have Newsround which is, basically, news for kids. It does report most of the main events in the world (although there is more emphasis on "stuff for kids", like Harry Potter premieres, sports personalities etc) in a way that kids can understand. The main thing that differs is that there's a lot more background on the stories, e.g. they'll explain some of the history of Israel/Palestine if they're reporting on that, while if you're watching the main news, you're expected to know most of that already.

Re:uh, gee

[Planesdragon]

I'd love to know how "protecting the children" came to be associated with "censoring what youth can be made aware of". I'd personally say that a nationwide attempt at suppression and lying would damage, not "protect" a child.

Suppression is good, lies are not.

It should be a parent's decision of how and when to inform their children about the serious events in the world. Especially young children.

If they want to let the child surf the web carefree at age 6, it's between them & God & the department of social services.

"safe for kids" is a lowest-common-denominator idea, which is the only practical way to do it. If you want your children to go to an R-rated movie, you should have to take them. If you want your children to know what happened on Sept. 11 2001, you should be the one to add your own context.

Or, if not you, then someone who knows your child and can phrase the message in a reasonable way--a schoolteacher, a relative, a specially hired counselor or a trusted religious teacher. Anyone except the sensationalist news media that rides more on shocking-to-adult value than anything else.

A .kids.us domain is a great idea, and I wholeheartedly support it. I might even see if I can set up a roleplaying.kids.us domain... gotta talk to BWR about that one.

Well

[TekReggard]

This is one of those few good moves that I appreciate. I'm about that age where I will be having kids in the near future, and it makes a big difference to me what kinds of things they're exposed to. Something like this would make myself feel very safe letting my kids roam the internet, and I'm pretty sure most other parents or soon to be parents feel this way too. I would know that if they're on a Disney site, a site about children's shows, or even a local news site, its very unlikely they will accidentally end up on some sexist, racist, or drug related website.

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

Well... don't want this to sound like a flame, but I'm not very afraid of kids being hurt by content because:

• Things that are weird for them (sexual images before teenage, senseless violence), they will ignore, perhaps just ask "what is that", and moving on.
• Things that do interest them (same sexual images when they get older), they can browse for all I care, if they choose to.

That is, no child will get really harmed just by accidentally browsing to a page that contains "adult" content. They may get scared because of the reaction of their parents ("what the FUCK are you doing browsing those dirty sites"), or perhaps they've already been messed by zealous parents. But normal human being want be harmed by web pages, especially since it's easy to just close the browser.

I just have never understood the special american complex towards nudity or erotic material. And although I despise violence in all its forms, I don't think it's worth censoring either.

Re:Well

[evil_roy]

..."just as easy to close the browser."

You obviously haven't been to any porn sites

Now taking bets..

[EvilStein]

How long will it be before www.*.kids.us becomes nothing more than a big advertisement for Nickelodeon, Disney, and Fox Kids?

Re:Now taking bets..

[CormacJ]

No bets there. The whole domain probably turn into one large toy advert.

I'm imagining there won't be much of a take up on it and it will die off after a bit (probably after the next election).

Re:Now taking bets..

[Jacer]

yeah, because children under the age of 13 have the required credit cards and credit history to make transactions over the internet

Re:Now taking bets..

[dr_dank]

I'd rather place my bets on when good 'ol Mr. Goatse will set up shop there to prove a point.

Re:Now taking bets..

[marauder404]

No time at all. Nickelodeon, Disney, and Fox Kids already have shamelessly self-promotional sites, just like nearly every other commercial site on the Internet. The kids.us domain isn't supposed to create squeaky-clean content for kids and no one's going to be censoring CNN. Instead, you'll see sites that are designed for kids to use and are focused toward kids (CNN will have stories more interesting toward kids, much like childrens magazines today). More importantly, it's what you won't see on the domain: porn and violence.

Re:Now taking bets..

[carpe_noctem]

Probably about 30min to 1hr, tops. ;)

Seriously, though, I don't think there's any question it will become a huge advertising haven. And why shouldn't it be? Kids are pretty much swamped with advertising information to the point that they can't grasp the concept of life without it (not being melodramatic here). Modern society has become so oversaturated with corporate glory that it is pretty realistic to expect that the internet is no different (if you don't believe me, fire up IE at let it go to msn.com sometime).

I guess the point of my little rant is that technology has really become almost exclusively the realm of the corporation. If you want to avoid advertising, it is best to seek information through other means. :/

Re:Now taking bets..

[cosyne]

I think some places have laws against advertisments directed at young children. Is somebody going to argue that 'this is where babies come from' is more damaging to a child than 'you're not a good person unless you own X'? (The answer being yes, whoever is selling X is going to argue that like hell). If i had kids (big if), i'd be concerned about them being consumerized as well as being scarred by goatse etc. Clearly, supervised use is the way to go, but .kids is arguably a good stopgap measure for parents unwilling or unable to be involved in their child's computer use and preferring to leave the decision of what's appropriate up to The Man (business or the us government(business)). (And it's somewhat similar to my fascistnet proposal).

Re:Now taking bets..

[(trb001)]

It would be interesting to see the effect if corporate sponsorship wasn't allowed in this domain. Either that, or simply make it so that corporate logos couldn't be displayed. Perhaps then content really WOULD be king?

--trb

Re:Now taking bets..

[onion2k]

More interesting would be something like searching Google for 'Eminem +URL:".kids.us"'. As all of his media is parent advisory and/or rated 18 and over, it should return nothing. Of course, most of the 13 year olds I know are hoodie-wearing skate punks who listen to little else... It won't be a popular domain with the kids.

No international links

[foniksonik]

I hope they realize that they are passing legislation which disallows linking to international sites, even if they are kid safe... i guess our kids will only be getting US approved history as usual.

Well hopefully the librarians at schools will keep at least one or two computers available for doing real research on sites like BBC, etc. who may not feel the need to create a special US version of their material available just for kids in the US.

Re:No international links

[Pxtl]

That's interesting... can the kids get a note from their parents allowing them to use the unfiltered machine?

Re:No international links

[BrookHarty]

I hope they realize that they are passing legislation which disallows linking to international sites, even if they are kid safe... i guess our kids will only be getting US approved history as usual.

And when has the history books in school been uncensored? You only get uncensored history in college.

Re:No international links

[samyool]

Actually, this probably won't be the case.

There's no prerequisite for one to reside, or operate one's business from the United States in order to have a .us address, and the converse is also true; take a look at any of the online registrars, who will gleefully tell you, "We're sorry that foo.com appears to be taken. We've taken the liberty of researching foo.ca, foo.cc, and foo.ru for you, all of which appear to be available".

If the only requisite (aside obviously from some heavy content restrictions) for getting foo.kids.us is that you only link to other kids.us sites, I don't think this will prevent non US-based organizations from registering these names.

-S

Re:No international links

[C0LDFusion]

I look like I'm under 17 -- would she piull me off? Would she object (or help) if she saw me pulling myself off?

No. If you told her you were older, you could show ID and she'd let you go ahead. It's not like this little old lady's going to yank someone out of their chair and open a can of whoop-ass.

Re:No international links

[toriver]

Of course, kids.us is for the US. I mean, there's nothing that stops a kids.uk or kids.cx (please, no jokes).

The point, I think, was whether you could link from *.kids.us to content on those kids.uk etc. sites. As stated, that doesn't seem to be the case, thus ensuring the kids' ignorance of things like the metric system. :-P

Re:No international links

[(trb001)]

i guess our kids will only be getting US approved history as usual.

I did research for my entire childhood before the internet came around. It's called a library, and they have lots of books and 'encyclopedias' that contain facts about the big expanses of land past the oceans.

Just because they HAVE access to the net doens't mean they are required to use only that.

--trb

Good solution

[Cato the Elder]

It would be much more sensible to create a domain of non-kid-"safe" content

No it wouldn't. That wouldn't be at all useful. Sure, you couldn't block children from going there, but you can't force everything non "kid-safe" into that one corner. This way, you can have an inclusion only filter, which is always easier to set up. I don't see a few "redundant" registrations as being a problem, they don't exactly eat up a noticible amount of money or Internet resources.

Hey, I have an idea!

[neksys]

Let's further fragment and complicate the internet in the name of our children's safety!!

Christ - the problem of protecting children from offensive or adult content lies with the parents, not one some new-fangled US legislation. Educate your children, monitor their internet usage, but for goodness sakes, do NOT lock them into a pisspoor subset of the internet - a new domain suffix is NOT a suitable substitute for responsible adult supervision.

Re:Hey, I have an idea!

[Anonymous Coward]

Parents don't have time to filter ALL information on the internet. It's a question of amount of time to filter all content.

Now most (but not all) parents will be able to trust the kids.us filter _as a baseline_. If they want their kids to see additional stuff they are always empowered to do so, and the time required to do that is managable.

Where this won't work well is for some parents who find some of the accepted kids.us content unacceptable. (And to be honest, I'm not all that worried about them.)

Re:Hey, I have an idea!

[lommer]

Actually, what I want to know is whether there are any provisions that the kids.us domain could be extended to other countries. The article said that sites in kids.us would only be allowed to link to other sites in kids.us, but does the legislation provide for the event that other countries' kids-friendly domain names could be linked to? i.e. If Canada created a kids.ca or the UK created kids.uk, are there provisions that would allow sites in kids.us to link to these sites?

I know this would make the domain system even more complicated, but it could prove useful.

Re:Hey, I have an idea!

[Bagheera]

Amen. The ultimate responsibility for the kids lies with the parent. It's not up to anyone to censor the Net for them. However, as several people aptly point out, the .kids.us gives a "Known safe" space to work within.

Of course, we're left with the spectre of "Who's policing .kids.us for us?" but it's a step in the right direction. We're left with "assumed safe" sites rather than "Unknown blocks" from censorware

Re:Hey, I have an idea!

[stratjakt]

Have you ever tried to set up a filter for 8-10 year olds to be able to browse the 'net, and do so safely?

I have. I don't want to sit over their shoulders all the time - I want them to enjoy playing around with computers on their own as I did when I was their age.

They aren't going to actively seek out porn or hate speech - they're much to young to know or care. But they might, and have, tried to search for video game tips.

Searching for a game faq for one of my kids games, I realized just how sleazy and shitty the 'net is. Porn banners galore on video game sites.

So, I have a whitelist set up for their machines. Right now, when they hear a site mentioned on tv (like nickelodeon.com or cartoonnetwork.com) or whatever, they try it, it wont work, and they tell me, and I add it. After I search through it, make sure there's nothing they can accidentally click on.

This is just a whole TLD I can add to that whitelist. It's easier, and its a hell of a start. And it doesn't complicate the internet any more than any other TLD has.

It's either this, or real censorship. I think this is a great compromise.

Re:Hey, I have an idea!

[inkswamp]

Christ - the problem of protecting children from offensive or adult content lies with the parents, not one some new-fangled US legislation.

For the most part, I agree with you, but then, most of society doesn't. I have two children and one is old enough to use our computer, and I monitor her Internet usage. In fact, I have raised my daughter in such a way that she self-censors. She knows when she's stumbled across something that may be questionable and asks me if it's okay. However, not everyone is as good a parent as I am (sorry to sound snotty, but it's the truth.) Consider how this will inevitably boomerang back on our asses if we don't provide a safe "sandbox" for the rest of the parents out there who can't get it together. I don't want to see legislation that attempts to outlaw content and punish people for viewing certain things because some inattentive parent out there can't get the first clue on how to raise their child. I'd much rather accept this "lesser evil."

I'm surprised to see any carping about it as any attempts to make the Internet more kid-friendly without legislation would seem to find favor with most readers of Slashdot.

Re:Hey, I have an idea!

[Alsee]

Where this won't work well is for some parents who find some of the accepted kids.us content unacceptable. (And to be honest, I'm not all that worried about them.)

And to be honest I'm not to worried about YOU, so long as you don't try to muck up the rest of the internet.

-

Re:which kids?

[Anonymous Coward]

Moderators, please change the rating of the parent to (-1, unpatriotic), and forward his message to the UN.

I'm still waiting on the .us domain name suffix.

Ban advertising too

[Sanity]

On the whole, this is a good thing for those of us concerned about censorship. Having said that, I think that they should take a leaf out of Sweden's book, and ban advertising on the kids.us domain too. Advertising is manipulation for profit, and psychological manipulation of children for profit is revolting IMHO, more so than most of the things that won't be permitted under the kids.us domain.

Re:Ban advertising too

[Tyler Eaves]

Actually, I think this would, for the most part. Basically every ad I've ever seen is clickable ( == link). They're only allowed to link to .kids.us. So presumably any ads could be for other kids.us sites.

Re:Ban advertising too

[LX.onesizebigger]

I think you're missing the point. Corporations can still set up sites marketing mind-numbing toys in 100% genuine plastic that will occupy your kids and condition them into good corporate slaves. They can then have these sites linked to from ads on other .kids.us sites. I believe the original poster wanted to stop this kind of corporate propaganda. I think the reference to Sweden was the fact that it is for example illegal for TV here to show ads directed at kids under the age of 12.

Re:Ban advertising too

[TheWickedKingJeremy]

So presumably any ads could be for other kids.us sites.

Yes, but the question is, can Pepsi create a "pepsi.kids.us" site? If you want to keep it pure, you need to keep advertising (and consequently, vested interests) off of it. Keep it fun and educational.

Re:Ban advertising too

[dirk]

How many "kids sites" are anything but an advertisement? Nickelodeon.com is nothing but an ad for their shows. Same with cartoonnetwork.com. Most kids sites are there to promote some TV show, or book series, or whatnot. Saying you can have those, but not advertisements for other toys, etc seems a big hypocritical.

Re:Ban advertising too

[shaitand]

let's see that has 100% probably of occuring captain. Banning all for profit, and tax exempt non-profit organizations from kids.us would be the best thing imaginable. For one, it would keep ads away from the kids and at least they could browse withotu popup blocking, it would keep religion from bombarding them with one group or another's fantasies. And most importantly, it would keep commercial entities from backing plans to further segregate the internet into "targetted" demographic groups.

Re:Ban advertising too

[peeping_Thomist]

sites marketing mind-numbing toys in 100% genuine plastic that will occupy your kids and condition them into good corporate slaves.

Not if from the beginning you teach your kids what advertising it and how it works, and if you yourself aren't caught up in consumerist/materialist culture. My kids and I have a blast analyzing (and making fun of) advertising.

Re:Ban advertising too

[ChrisDolan]

Perhaps this is slightly off-topic...

One huge exception, in my opinion, to your generalization is the Fun For Girls half of the www.americangirl.com site, owned by Pleasant Company. There is definitely advertising going on there (the site does talk about the characters), but none of it is blatant (there is no mention/pictures/links of dolls, books, etc). It's pretty remarkable, I think.

Big disclaimer: I've done work on the americangirl.com site, but I don't work for Pleasant Company.

Re:Ban advertising too

[cosyne]

How many "kids sites" are anything but an advertisement?

http://www.cia.gov/cia/ciakids/

Well, it is propaganda, but i don't think they're actually selling a product ;-)

OK so far

[Jafafa Hots]

Its a better solution than some others, BUT

Who gets to decide what content is suitable? Will discussion of the birds and the bees not be permitted by the repubs, but sites that exploit kids by trying to sell them stuff be allowed?

So, no Learnhowyourbodyworks.kids.us or whatswiththesethingsgrowingonme.kids.us or somepeoplebelieveinevolution.kids.us, but plenty of disneyshop.kids.us or sugaredcereal.kids.us sites?

Re:OK so far

[Jafafa Hots]

(I bet thinkforyourself.kids.us would never make the cut)

Re:OK so far

[syrinx]

I like how you bring up republicans as the ones who will censor.

Can we say "Tipper Gore"? How about "Hilary Clinton"? "Joe Lieberman"? Need I go on?

(not that the republicans are any better, but there are plenty of pro-censorship people on *both* sides, singling one side out isn't necessary)

Re:OK so far

[mrpuffypants]

i'm behind sourceforge.kids.us

when 6 year olds begin releasing stuff that I am using on my BSD box I will be happy

Re:OK so far

[robson]

Can we say "Tipper Gore"? How about "Hilary Clinton"? "Joe Lieberman"? Need I go on?

It's a good and oft-ignored point -- censorship (or, more accurately, attempted legislation of consumption behavior) isn't a Left/Liberal-Right/Conservative issue. There are plenty of folks on both sides who'd love to prevent potentially "offensive" material from being sold in stores.

There's more on the differences between the "Left/Right" axis and the "Libertarian/Authoritarian" axis here:
http://www.digitalronin.f2s.com/politicalcompass/a nalysis2.html

Or, if you want to take the test first and see where you stand:
http://www.digitalronin.f2s.com/politicalcompass/q uestionnaire.pl?page=1

Like this

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently, you want to watch this space.

That was linked from nic.us.. it's the page for the kids.us domain. Apparently Neustar is still holding a public comment period asking for advice on how to run the thing.. apparently they didn't really want to create this domain and don't have any idea how to go about doing the thing, so they seem to be hoping on letting "the community" come up with ideas.

The public comment period isn't over yet, though, so it *looks* like you can't get one yet.. on the other hand, as an interested party (i.e. an individual with a kids-specific site) this would probably be a great opportunity for you to make your voice heard..

This is a "good thing"...

[dkemist]

Most of the posts I've read seem to miss the point. While I'm completely opposed to selective censorship of the web as a whole, this provides a great solution for a "white list" of ok sites. Say a pre school or even grade school wants to provide limited internet access to their students. All they need to do is limit their access to the .kids.us domain. No one is going to pretend that the kids have access to the 'net at large -- that's not what they want. They just want a guaranteed 'safe' way to expose their kids to some educational resources. Limiting the access to a specific domain that you have to qualify to get into is a good thing. Compare that approach to some of the current blacklists and url filters.

Just by the fact that the name is "kids.us" I don't think this is something that is targetting more general audiences such as those accessing the internet in public libraries.

Re:This is a "good thing"...

[sheetsda]

this provides a great solution for a "white list" of ok sites

I once heard about an ongoing project of finding paths through the web. The objective was to take any web site and within seven clicks on links arrive at a porn site. Last I heard, the government of New Zealand web site was the only one for which they hadn't succeeded. Adjusting the content (removing links that aren't on the whitelist, to satisfy the link requirement) of a web site based on which TLD the domain was requested as isn't terribly difficult to do, but will the adoption of this be so widespread as to warrant very many sites doing it? In my opinion, no. I like the idea of a non-kid friendly TLD much better; at that point filtering in large part becomes trivial.

Another thing, how does the government determine what material is acceptible for children? Obviously some things are right out, but what about for instance a Tom and Jerry cartoon with animated violence? How much is too much? What about the purists that say "I'd rather have my child watch two people making love than two people trying to kill each other"? The definition of 'acceptable' varies widely from parent to parent, culture to culture, and I don't think you can appease them all at once, not by a long way. Better to organize things into catagories such as ".xxx" and let parents figure out what they want their kids to see.

Re:This is a "good thing"...

[LostCluster]

How do you propose on telling somebody who insists they belong in .com that they have to go sit into that corner called .xxx?

Re:This is a "good thing"...

[Tokerat]

I propose to say "Sit your bitch ass in .xxx, or live without a website."

Where's Geoffrey?

[zx-6e]

Why didn't they just call it kids.r.us? Then they could sell toys too!

Re:Where's Geoffrey?

[larien]

Hrm, lemme see...

Toys "R" Us sells toys, so Kids "R" Us would sell...

What about IP addresses?

[addikt10]

How can they enforce, or even implement no linking outside of kids.us domains? What about IP addresses? What about virtual servers, that share IP addresses?

It might make it easier to filter, but still far from easy. And any kid that knows how to use nslookup (oh, sorry - that's been depricated. Of course I meant dig) can bypass it.

Re:What about IP addresses?

[LostCluster]

Linking outside .kids.us on a trapped-browser would be futile, that browser will see that .kids.us isn't the last eight bytes and refuse the request.

Re:What about IP addresses?

[J'raxis]

The FCC doesn't enforce censorship by installing filters on your TV or on the cameras. If a broadcaster violates FCC regs, they get fined.

The cops don't enforce speeding laws by putting devices in cars that limit their maximum speed to the posted limit. If they catch you speeding, they give you a ticket.

Just because you're dealing with a computer or the Internet, doesn't mean "enforcement" is going to be necessarily technological. They'll enforce it the same way they enforce other laws; if they catch you doing something illegal, you'll be punished for it.

(Although I wouldn't doubt that they'll use technological means to find out who's breaking the regulations - they could employ a webspider that checks every page on every page under the domain to make sure no anchors point outward.)

Re:What about IP addresses?

[SEE]

Since Google will probably wind up creating a google.kids.us site anyway, and Google already tracks what pages link to where as part of its indexing mechanism, the checking could be contracted out to them for trivial (on a government scale) amounts of money.

Better be quick..

[EvilCabbage]

.. if you want to register goatse.kids.us ...

Re:Better be quick..

[*xpenguin*]

Better be quick if you want to register goatse.kids.us

And what, show whinnie the poo bending over?

Re:Better be quick..

[dotgod]

Either Whinnie the Poo or this.

Re:Better be quick..

[Maj. Kong]

"Oh bother," said Pooh, as he pulled open his sphincter.

Maj. Kong

Re:Better be quick..

[The Great Wakka]

Dear lord god, NO! This is disgusting... /me has this image stuck in his head.

So...

[Anonymous Coward]

...how many companies will even bother? Not only would they have to shell out the cash for a new domain name, but they'd also have to hire more staff to make sure that all the links are following the rules. I'd imagine there's some nasty penalties if they don't.

So, who'll do it? What happens if a kid is doing a report on, say, Djbouti, but Encyclopedia Onlineica didn't believe it would be cost effective to go through the effort?

Speaking of that, who decides what content of Encyclopedia Onlineica is safe? After all, everyone knows that the *good* encyclopedias have lengthy sections detailing how and why humans rock the casbah.

Man, that was sad. I used to read volume S quite a bit. *sigh*

Pathetic events of my childhood aside, how effective is this going to be? Is this just the feel-good I'm-not-bombing-anyone-right-now event of the political season, or will this actually work?

I guess it boils down to - will Little Johnny still be able to get the information he needs for school work without being bombarded by porn pop-ups, or will he just say, "Screw it!" and use the 'regular' 'net?

Re:So...

[Sloppy]

..how many companies will even bother? Not only would they have to shell out the cash for a new domain name..

That's the beauty of it: they everyone has to register a .kids.us domain. If (for example) Ford doesn't register ford.kids.us, then I will, and I'll put up a page listing my opinions of Ford, right where a bunch of impressionable kids will be able to read it. Can Ford possibly allow this to happen? Of course not; they have to preemptively register to counter dissent, squatters, etc.

Instant revenue stream for whoever is in charge of the kids.us.

More work to be done.

[Chris_Stankowitz]

Great, now we have a way for parents to control thier kids internet usage. Lets be honest, parents should NOT NEED this. I won't insult any parents by saying, "Responsible" parents don't need this. Any one who calls themself a parent DOESN'T need this. What Does need to be created however is a top level domain that would kill 2 birds with one stone. One for example like a .XXX, that would allow companies to restrict this domain and not have to keep up with all the pr0n sites on the net and would also allow parents to block this content. I remeber the argument being that this kind of domain could not be regulated properly. This argument was perpetuated by more than a few people in the /. lcommunity and in goverment. But, somewhow a top level kids domain will work? Intresting, I think it will work, and that this should be a move in the right direction of properly placing domains in their respecitve places.

I don't remeber anyone complaing at the birth of the internet that .com's should only be for corporatins and .edu's for schools. This all seemed like a great idea at the time. Somewhere down the line all theses domains became usable by anyone (with the large exception being to .edu's). If the .edu's can restrict their use to only educational facilities why can't .coms only be for corps, and .org's for organizations?

Re:More work to be done.

[LostCluster]

However, the porn operators, realizing that .xxx is going to be a path to the black hole on a majority of ISPs will insist that their site belongs in .com, because after all, they are a company in the porn industry, right?

The red-light district will always be the area with the least regulation... you can't tell the porn sites where to go, you can only tell them where they're not allowed to go.

Re:More work to be done.

[Chris_Stankowitz]

Point taken. If only there was a better way. /shrug

Message Boards

[Gyorg_Lavode]

How does this domain deal with websites which can be modified by users such as message boards? Will everything posted to a message board in this domain need to be heavily filtered so as to not link outside of the domain? What about addresses that are only published and not linked? What about links to email addresses, screen names, and chat rooms? I think it's also interesting to note that it does not allow chat or IM clients inside the domain. Does this mean that John can't give Jack his IM name so they can work on their presentation?

Overall though I think it is a good idea. Assuming websites targetted at children, (such as Disney, schools, and knowledge databases), take advantage of this it could be very beneficial. I think many of those who could take advantage of this will have to create dual sites: one for the domain and one for outside of it, as many schools and knowledge databases benefit from refrencing information that will not be in the domain.

Re:Message Boards

[LostCluster]

Kids under 13 aren't legally allowed to participate in an unmoderated board without a big huge signoff from their parents anymore anyway. So message boards and chat for kids is already a dead issue.

Re:Message Boards

[Gyorg_Lavode]

While I'm at a different level of education from the target of this audience, I don't see why they wouldn't use the tools I use. I use IM to communicate w/ my peers, both locally and in other states, about the checking and writing of papers, confirming of when events/assignments/exams take place, etc.

Also, it doesn't sound as if this domain is meant only for education. Socialization is a large part of the internet and it is in society's best interest to control the social groups it's children are in. This domain provides a very good area to support such social groups.

Search Engines

[SEWilco]

• "Now we can give you the best placement in all .kids.us search engines! Just send $19.95 a month to us, and we'll submit your site to every .kids.us search engine that we know of!"
• "Google News For Kids. Today's headlines:
  • Sesame Street Year 8 replays begin today on a network which we can't name because it is not in .kids.us.
  • Someplace in the world, the Muppets Movie 4 became available in a certain format.
  • The Little Prince product line has not been selling well in the specialty store where it is available."

Next up... [.parents.us]

[dagg]

By Brie Linetoe
Washington Boast
Wednesday, December 4th, 2002; 12:30PM

President Bush today signed legislation that seals off the P-rated (Parents Only) "neighborhood" for parents on the World Wide Web.

The Dot-parents implementation will contain items that kids may not look at. All content that is suitable for viewing after kids go to bed will be available at .parents.us sites.

These sites will only be available after 10PM in most time zones, except for CST (which will have it available after 9PM).

Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), remarked that the new domain was just what his doctor ordered. Sen. Dorgan says "We're not censoring anything. We're just making it available after 10PM for parents only."

--
Example of .parents.us site

How on earth is this going to work??

[cranos]

Just on a purely technical point, how are they going to govern the domain space. Are they going to setup a department just to keep checking up on the kids.us domains?

And also how the hell are they going to to stop the pedo's abusing this. Domain name and IP spoofing as well as email and the rest could lead to a situation no one wants to see.

The answer is not ham fisted attempts such as this one, its parental supervision. I know that my son is not allowed to go on the computer unless there is an adult present.

Re:How on earth is this going to work??

[Skapare]

Maybe they can offer a contract to Google to spider the whole domain, but in addition offering a kids friendly search engine, Google could also do the cross checks by having the special bots that spider it also check all the links for anything that isn't kids.us, lock those out of the kids.us search engine database, and report them to the appropriate agency handling it. When a link is found that goes to a non-kids.us site, the domain owner is called up by that agency (their emergency contact info might be part of the registration requirement) and told to remove it within the hour, or their domain name gets disabled (which could be done faster if the kids.us zone file has short TTL settings on all the delegations). Since the technology exists to isolate the upper level domain names, such as Slashdot uses to optionally show them to you in postings, it could easily be extended to totally block out the link if it's not to kids.us, or even reject the posting altogether. The problem is more a social one of making people actually do it since way too many people (adults here) are too clueless to understand how to make things right. So we shouldn't be seeing a goatse.cx or urinalpoop.org showing up if they do it right.

There are lots of different kinds of spoofing, so I don't know which you are referring to, so I can't give a specific example of how to prevent it. But the obvious part is that there are at least 2 levels of protection parents can engage. The light level is simply make sure the kids start on a kids.us portal. Then as long as the site operators do what they are supposed to, the kids will be safe. The stronger level is to configure the browser so that when the kids are logged in to the computer, it won't allow access to any web content (including images, Java, CSS, whatever) which isn't found by means of a kids.us domain lookup. So the URLs with IP addresses won't work, either.

One form of spoofing you may be referring to is stuff like emailed URLs that look like a kids.us URL, but in fact go to somewhere else. But that's an issue of whether the parents allow the kids to use software that would access some other domain. By using the stronger level of protection, even opening spam with these links will fail, as long as the program displaying it goes through the same mechanisms to find the site (which I believe is the case on Windows). The content actually in that mail is another issue. Since almost everything in email can be forged, you might not want to allow your kids access to email unless you have some stronger protection to ensure they are getting it only from other kids you approve of. Restricting kids to web based email on a kids.us webmail site, that by extension of the law should only communicate with other such sites and not to any outside of the kids.us domain, and not by SMTP which could spoof that, should keep your kids safe.

I don't believe the law is requiring you as a parent to restrict your kids to this domain, but rather, is giving you this as an option, so that if you choose to, you can set up the computer to limit itself to kids.us and actually leave your child unattended for a while at the computer with more confidence than you would have today. My worry, though, is that this might be just the first step to more laws, or case law, in the future. Consider a court deciding to take children away from their parents and the fact that the parents didn't restrict their kids to kids.us on the computer was what tipped the scale in the case. That would open up a whole lot of new problems that I can see. And I'm afraid a case like that will happen within a few years.

Re:How on earth is this going to work??

[cranos]

This is what I am talking about. It is going to involve a huge technical effort for very little gain. The very concept of a .kid.us is as stupid as a .porn .us domain. Its the parents job to accept the responsibility to govern what their children view.

This is basically a sop to the christian fundamentalists and right wing groups who believe that the internet should be restricted to the nth degree.

And don't be so sure about people who want to wont be able to get around any restrictions the government legislates on the domain. All it does is allow a false sense of security.

Re:How on earth is this going to work??

[marauder404]

You're right -- technical solutions shouldn't be a substitute for good parenting and supervision. But a little bit of technical wizardry does help. You do keep the cookie jar out of their reach, right?

As for how it's going to be enforced, it's the responsibility of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration according to the HR Bill.

Re:How on earth is this going to work??

[LS]

I rarely laugh uncontrollably at a post on Slashdot, and this is one of those posts. I don't know why, but the second paragraph has me busting up.

Re:How on earth is this going to work??

[Skapare]

I'm sure the christian fundamentalists will be jumping on setting up kids.us sites. Other groups wanting to provide information from a different point of view will eventually want to counter that. And I'm sure Disney will want to indoctrinate the kids that computers that don't restrict your right to copy any file is somehow evil.

Of course there will be some intrusions. But a lot of things can be done to prevent it that could not be done on the rest of the internet. For one thing, First Amendment won't apply, since it's not a matter of preventing you from putting content on the net, it's a matter of whether a certain group will point to your information. Of course there can be arguments on the other side of that. And certain technical restrictions that break things they can get away with here, such as the "no longs to any other domain". You can't do that in the rest of the internet. Of course it won't be perfect, as some will surely slip in (computers can get hacked). But violations can be taken more seriously here than in the regular internet. Note I say "can". I don't know if they actually will.

Re:How on earth is this going to work??

[ratamacue]

Are they going to setup a department just to keep checking up on the kids.us domains?

Of course they will. The objective here (like any non-core function of government) is (a) to spend tax money and (b) to acquire more power. What good would a new government program be if there wasn't something in it for the ruling class? As always, expansion of government equates to more "responsibility" (wealth and/or power) for those in the ruling class.

is this a stupid question?

[mattrowe]

so... what's to stop someone from posting "questionable" content on a kids.us domain??

can these sites explain mommy's breast cancer?

can these sites explain mommy's breast enhancements?

can these sites explain daddy's breast enhancements?

where's that arbitrary line drawn?

Re:is this a stupid question?

[stratjakt]

Wherever the line is drawn, there'll be assholes who want to push it to make some kind of dumb-ass freedom of speech comment, like those that think they need to teach about homosexuality in kindergarten.

There'll also be those that think the line is drawn to wide, like those that think the teletubbies are a subversive plot to make children gay.

Let them play, let them have fun, for fuck sakes. I really wish people would stop using them as pawns to push their own philosophical agendas.

We expect them to understand the world as we do at the ripe old ages of 6 or 7.

The cruelest thing we do in this day and age is rob kids of their childhood. It makes me sick.

Re:is this a stupid question?

[LostCluster]

That line likely puts all three of those things in the foul territory, but that's okay. They still have grownups around them to explain these things, and if the grownups don't know all the answers, then the grownups cna supervise them in a trip through .com

Re:is this a stupid question?

[infolib]

From the law

`(1) HARMFUL TO MINORS- The term `harmful to minors' means, with respect to material, that--

• • `(A) the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find, taking the material as a whole and with respect to minors, that it is designed to appeal to, or is designed to pander to, the prurient interest;

• • `(B) the material depicts, describes, or represents, in a manner patently offensive with respect to minors, an actual or simulated sexual act or sexual contact, an actual or simulated normal or perverted sexual act, or a lewd exhibition of the genitals or post-pubescent female breast; and

• • `(C) taken as a whole, the material lacks serious, literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.

`(2) MINOR- The term `minor' means any person under 13 years of age.

Re:is this a stupid question?

[shaitand]

A web designed to exchange information shouldn't bar information of any kind. Whether it be sex ed, medical conditions such as breast cancer or anything else. Just because you have breast cancer and would like to tell your kid yourself, that is hardly a reason why my kid should be restricted from researching this information. Perhaps my child would like to study various forms of cancer because they want to develope a cure when they grow up.

Re:is this a stupid question?

[swillden]

A web designed to exchange information shouldn't bar information of any kind.

Nice assertion. Care to back it up with some reasoning?

Just because you have breast cancer and would like to tell your kid yourself, that is hardly a reason why my kid should be restricted from researching this information.

So your kid should ask you for permission to get access to non kids.us domains.

Where's the problem here?

Re:is this a stupid question?

[NeMon'ess]

Historically childhood didn't exist past 8 or 12 years old. Children went to school if their parents didn't need them working, and the vast majority were working at home/farming, on in factories/apprenticeships by junior high age. I think children should learn how the world works, the more thouroughly the better so they don't reach college so clueless.

Re:is this a stupid question?

[shaitand]

Nice assertion. Care to back it up with some reasoning?

web designed to exchange information for educational purposes shouldn't bar information because this censorship leads to incomplete pictures of issues. This is how the education system has been brainwashing children since... it's creation?

So your kid should ask you for permission to get access to non kids.us domains.

So your saying my children should have to ask my permission and have me supervise everytime they care to do schoolwork? Since I don't trust my children (theoretically, since I am restricting them to kids.us domain) I'd have to spend every moment watching over their shoulder while they did any actual studying. Wouldn't that kind of kill the whole point of the kids.us thing? Besides that, we aren't talking about sexual information here, we are talking about medical information. Breast Cancer is a topic my children are likely to cover in school. If you don't want your children to have access to medical information. Or any other information (see Dark Ages) then by all means, don't allow them to access kids.us.

Re:is this a stupid question?

[basse]

I totally agree with you that we should not rob children of their childhood, even though the whole concept of a "childhood" is new.

The problem is that our personalities are shaped during this childhood period. If we are only subjected to harmless (in general opinion, not necessarily in my) things, in this case sites, we are generally not equipped to cope with the not-so-harmless (again in general opinion) ones when we reach that magic age - be it 16, 18, 21 or whatever.

Another problem in your argument is that kids ask questions of all kinds - some of which fall into the not-harmless category. Should we just ignore these? I think children can cope with these questions, and for their own good they should be allowed to.

Re:is this a stupid question?

[swillden]

web designed to exchange information for educational purposes shouldn't bar information because this censorship leads to incomplete pictures of issues.

Only if you believe that a single educational resource should be used for disseminating all information, which is obviously silly. The purpose of the .kids.us domain is explicitly *not* to be all things to all people.

So your saying my children should have to ask my permission and have me supervise everytime they care to do schoolwork? Since I don't trust my children (theoretically, since I am restricting them to kids.us domain) I'd have to spend every moment watching over their shoulder while they did any actual studying.

You're obviously not a parent.

If you were, you'd understand that it's not an issue of whether or not you "trust" your children, the goal is to be able to control what they're exposed to based on their ability to comprehend it, and based on the potential for confusion and damage.

Care to explain the goatse.cx dude to a five year-old?

Besides that, we aren't talking about sexual information here, we are talking about medical information. Breast Cancer is a topic my children are likely to cover in school.

If that happens, then the school would provide appropriate materials. It's also perfectly possible to cover breast cancer (why do you capitalize that?) without pictures, which would make it acceptable to most of the community, and therefore suitable for coverage within the .kids.us domain.

If you don't want your children to have access to medical information. Or any other information (see Dark Ages) then by all means, don't allow them to access kids.us.

Huh? The above makes no sense on its face and, even ignoring that, your allusion to the Dark Ages is utterly silly. No one is proposing that information should be taken from anyone. The idea is to create a defined subset of that information so that parents can easily restrict what their children have unlimited access to. Parents can choose whether or not they apply this restriction. And they can also choose the circumstances under which they allow their kids to have access to additional information.

Again I ask, what's the problem here?

Re:is this a stupid question?

[shaitand]

There is a fundemental difference in how we are looking at things here. I'm thinking more along the lines of where this will in reality be used. Schools. And unfortunately, yes, this will end up being what they restrict students to in High schools except under strict supervision of a teacher. I strongly suspect that the content level kids.us is restricted to will be geared toward the youngest children in the group.

The dark ages was a time when moral values strongly (even more strongly than today) greatly hindered the progress of mankind and the sharing and acceptance of knowledge. The catholic church filtered content and decided what was ok and what not. Most strongly what could be taught and what not. It's the parents like you who intend this for young children, who will be restricting the knowledge available to the adults. And in an exclusively us domain, material will undoubtedly be controlled by schools more than anyone else, and the censorship on what is taught and what not in the k-12 text books will directly affect what will be published on kids.us. This is my real concern, not a parent at home. Although I can't resist noting the dark ages still applies if the parent filters information just as the church did (does) then (now).

Re:is this a stupid question?

[shaitand]

On another note, the goatse.cx dude is a cheap shot, there is no explaination for the goatse.cx dude. Care to explain the goatse.cx dude to an adult???? For gods sakes man, be reasonable!

Re:is this a stupid question?

[swillden]

:-)

Although I liked your reply, it wasn't and isn't a cheap shot, it's precisely the kind of bizarre, sick thing that a child can run into on the Internet. While there is no explaining or understanding it, an adult can deal with it much better than a a child.

Re:is this a stupid question?

[swillden]

There is a fundemental difference in how we are looking at things here. I'm thinking more along the lines of where this will in reality be used. Schools.

Oh, I think it will be quite heavily used in homes as well.

And unfortunately, yes, this will end up being what they restrict students to in High schools except under strict supervision of a teacher. I strongly suspect that the content level kids.us is restricted to will be geared toward the youngest children in the group.

I don't think high schools will implement this restriction, specifically because the content will be geared towards younger children. If they do, however, I still don't really see a problem. Students would certainly be able to get access to other material upon request, or at home, or at the public library, etc. and most serious learning occurs after high school anyway. There's obviously no way in hell colleges would implement such a restriction.

Basically, though, my view is that the parents' ability to protect younger children outweighs the "needs" of older children to have unfettered access, particulary since I don't think the older kids should have completely unlimited access either. I mean, with the older children you're basically talking about two or three years of slight overprotectiveness. That's nothing. They'll be adults soon enough, and they'll have the next 70 years to learn, view and read whatever they like.

The dark ages was a time when moral values strongly (even more strongly than today) greatly hindered the progress of mankind and the sharing and acceptance of knowledge... Although I can't resist noting the dark ages still applies if the parent filters information just as the church did (does) then (now).

The filtering of information to children does nothing to hinder the progress of mankind. And, in general, I strongly disagree that moral values hinder progress. They do cause us to move a little slowly on occasion, but morality is essential to civilization, without which there can be no progress.

And, in fact, your understanding of the dark ages is incorrect as well (or, at least, your statement of your understanding of it). The problem wasn't that the church passed all information flow through moral filters, it was that the church eliminated nearly all flow of information, regardless of moral implication. The church did not allow even information about morality to flow freely -- possession of a copy of the Bible was a serious offense, sometimes a capital one, and what could be more moral than that?

The fact is, the prohibitions on learning in the dark ages were not about morality at all (though that was the excuse), but about power and control. And that is simply a non-issue with children because they're legally almost powerless anyway.

Re:is this a stupid question?

[shaitand]

an adult can deal with it much better than a a child I beg to differ, I have nightmares about the goatse.cx guy to this day. Besides that I'm arguing for unrestricted access to things from which knowledge can be gained. If you are taking lessons from the goatse.cx guy then i shudder to think of what you might you be learning and for the first time in my life have found something in which I wish to remain in totally ignorant bliss.

ok ok you win, we can cut medical information out of kids.us just so long as you keep goatse.cx out for the love of god. (maybe I'll start surfing there too). *to answer an earlier question, the reason I choose that is it was the reason for my initial post, it had nothing to do with pictures but believing breast cancer should be censored because someone (you?) up in the parent or parent of parent, or maybe another post on this article believed that if they had breast cancer it might be something they wished to teach their kids about themselves, deriving goatse.cx from whether a medical text on breast cancer should be allowed shows just how far this thread has gone awry!

Re:is this a stupid question?

[swillden]

Hmm. Maybe we're debating a different issue. I thought we were debating whether or not the kids.us domain is a good idea, but it appears that you're arguing over what ought or ought not to be included in it. I'll try to summarize my views on both:

The domain is a good idea because:

• There is a lot of crap on the open Internet that parents want to be able to keep their kids away from (and parents want their kids' schools to keep them away as well).(*)
• Blacklists don't and cannot ever work very well, because it's impossible for the blacklisters to keep up with the net. It's too big and changes too fast.
• Content filters don't work, and won't ever work until they get to be nearly as smart as people. No matter how you create them, with current technology they'll block both too much and not enough.
• Whitelists can and do work because, by definition, sites cannot join the whitelist without being checked. If, further, sites that join the whitelist must agree to keep their content within approved boundaries and only to link to other sites on the whitelist, then they can work very well. Whitelists obviously will always block too much, but at least we always know they block enough.
• Managing a whitelist, however, is a pain. And if one of the requirements on whitelisted sites is that they only link to other whitelisted sites, then they have to constantly verify all their links against the current whitelist. They could do this, but...
• Defining the whitelist in terms of a easily filterable pattern in the URL, and arranging so that it's not possible for just anyone to use that pattern (and domain names are the only centrally-controlled portion of the URL namespace) then use of the whitelist becomes trivial.

Thus, .kids.us solves a real problem and solves it effectively and simply (assuming it's used).

With regard to what should or should not be allowed in .kids.us, I'd suggest that the initial standards should be roughly the same as those used by the G rating of the motion picture rating system. Then people can debate and argue for more permissive standards where necessary.

With regard to medical information, I actually cannot think of any medical topic (outside of, say sexual dysfunctions) that cannot be covered adequately (for kids, medical schools are a different issue) with a G rating. My wife pointed out that there's absolutely no use, when discussing breast cancer, of showing a picture of a breast. If you look at two breasts, one with and one without cancer you will *not* be able to tell the difference, except at the very late stages.

One final comment: If it does turn out that more permissive standards are required for older children, we could always establish a teens.us domain, with appropriate standards and with the rule that teens.us sites are only allowed to link to teens.us and kids.us sites. An arbitrarily deep hierarchy could be defined this way.

(*) Sorry about your nightmares, but adults must fend for themselves -- I hope you're not advocating for the censorship of the net in general. Personally, the goatse.cx dude doesn't offend or disgust me; it just makes me sad.

Finally! My 800th post, and Amazingly Insightful!

[teamhasnoi]

Now GW can have a whole TLD aimed at his reading level!

Bar and George must be very proud.

Mods - please don't mod this up, Dubya can only count to 3.

This is *GREAT*.

[mindstrm]

Why? Several reasons.

1) It does not seek to regulate the whole internet.
2) The domain is .kids.us... in the US cctld..
3) Those who RUN kids.us set the rules for using that domain. The fact that it's a presidential order does not make it bad.... I could say the same thing about my domain, and set whatever terms I *WANT* for you to hafve a subdomain, and I am the law.

THis is the RIGHT approach to the problem.

Hopefully...

[zipwow]

You make a good point. Hopefully, if other countries follow this example, we'll amend our legislature to include their domains.

And equally as hopefully, our libraries will have access to more than just the .kids.us domain. They do have more than a children's and young-adult section now.

-Zipwow

MOD PARENT UP

[mike3411]

I was about to post this response. Giving parents more options & making it easier on them is never a bad idea. And clearly, nothing will prevent poor parenting from fscking up a kid. But given that even the best parents do not have an unlimited amount of time/energy to devote to their kids, and legislation like this can help them use that time more efficiently. I hope that continuing legislation allows for .kids.uk, .kids.de, etc., although I have a feeling we're going to run into some major "what should kids be allowed to see?" issues, even within .kids.us

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[donutello]

WHY? Why do you need a separate domain to separate kids? Why not just add it as meta information to the existing web page? Then you can program browsers to only go to pages with the appropriate meta information.

If you are worried about the lack of supervision, it wouldn't be hard to have some kind of certificates be issued and have the browser require the appropriate certificates.

That's how the content ratings on TV work and I don't see any problems with that.

This problem does not demand separate domain names as a solution.

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[shaitand]

Actually that's easy enough, religious related material is prohibited across the board, this is government regulated and therefore church and state cannot be mixed. No reglion, no politics, period. Any organization claiming a tax exempt status is prohibited. The kids themselves may post and put up whatever they wish.

How will this work?

[The Ancients]

A couple of questions:

By linking, are they referring to hyperlinks, or any sort of reference to sites outside .kids.us? What if you want to have graphics on your site from another (primary) site on an outside domain? Is all access to domains outside .kids.us going to be blocked? Is this technically possible? What about pop-ups? Will Java also be banned? Who is going to be in charge of the domain, and hence selling it? I'm sure someone like McDonalds, Disney, or Mattel would kindly volunteer...

Sorry, but it just seems like this hasn't been thought through terribly well.

Re:How will this work?

[LostCluster]

Already thought through... Browsers can enforce the "no linking outside .kids.us" rules strictly by simply checking all URLs it is about to request to make sure that the last eight bytes are ".kids.us" and if it's anything else, don't even bother letting it down the TCP/IP stack. Java's likely going to be okay as a technical standard, but of course what the Java applet depicts is subject to the content rules. A company by the name of NuStar is responsible for .kids.us, at least for now. (NuStar is also the registrar of record for the entire .us space anyway.) Operating .kids.us responsibly is part of the contract that allows them to profit from the .us domain. If they act poorly, they can be replaced.

Re:How will this work?

[anthony_dipierro]

This betrays a lack of knowledge about the way IP addresses work... technically there is no reason why the same IP address could not be pointed to by a domain name both within kids.us and one outside it. Remember, domain names point to IP addresses, not the other way around.

Well, first of all, it's actually both ways. Think PTR records...

But more to the point, if the same IP address is pointed to by a domain name within and outside of .kids.us, that's not going to be a problem, because that server must necessarily be using the Host: field.

Getting around any restrictions (such as a web browser like you propose) would be trivially easy- as one example, you could set up your own DNS server, invent an alias kids.us address for any address you want to access, point your system at it and fly. Or you could simply spoof any reverse DNS queries back to your own system.

Simply spoof any reverse DNS queries? How exactly are you going to do that without some kind of administrator access on the machine? Actually, how are you going to set up your own DNS server using the IP address being used by the browser.

If you have administrator access, you can just download a new browser. But if you don't have administrator access, then your methods won't work. And if HTTP access is blocked except through a proxy, I'd like to see you spoof DNS queries being made by the proxy.

Please, think before you post.

Certifying Sites for .kids

[dmatos]

Why does everyone seem to think that these sites won't be able to link to sites outside of .kids? What is gained by that?

In my opinion, all you have to do is check that the content of all of these sites is kid-safe. That's going to require periodic human checks anyway. However, there's nothing to stop them from putting up links to non-kids sites, like this one.

The real bonus of the .kids domain is it allows for easy filtering at the user-level. A firewall that blocks all domains outside of .kids. You can click on that goatse.cx link all you like, but the firewall will stop you from seeing, well, what none of us really want to see.

That way, if you have an adult surfing, they can actually follow links to relevant .com/.net/.org/.whatever sites that they want to see, and the .kids TLD will have the chance to be useful to us older folks as well.

Re:Certifying Sites for .kids

[Alan Shutko]

Why does everyone seem to think that these sites won't be able to link to sites outside of .kids?

Probably because we read the article.

What is gained by that?

It's probably to ease the checkers, so they don't have to check the link content, just the URL.

Re:Certifying Sites for .kids

[anthony_dipierro]

It's probably to ease the checkers, so they don't have to check the link content, just the URL.

But why would they have to check the link anyway? If a kid is running a browser that only will show .kids.us sites, and she clicks a link to a non .kids.us site, it's not going to work anyway.

Great, now just another domain everyone will need.

[emkman]

Every company is going to be forced to get a kids domain now, or be left out of this "new internet". What if i want to include a google box to search my own kid site, or link to current headlines at CNN? I can't because these are .com, and obviously not safe enough. Big companies can afford it, by why should everyone be forced to create new, possibly edited domains(cause they can only like to kids domains now too), just to be a viable part of the internet

Slashdot.Kids.Us

[SEWilco]

News for Kids, Stuff You're Allowed To Know

Site News: Kids, when you submit news stories remember to link only within .kids.us and to not say anything unpatriotic or the trained mammals will bite your fingers until you behave.

What are you talking about?

[mindstrm]

What about IP addresses? Is this that hard to understand?

Virtual servers has nothing to do with it.. this has specifically to do with WEBSITES.

If your site is referenced by a .kids.us domain, and it has links that point outside that domain, you are violating the rules. If all your links ot other URLS are IN .kids.us, you are safe.

That's pretty damn simple.

What do you mean, *MIGHT* make it easier to filter? You take your web proxy at your elementary school library, you say "don't resolve anything besides .kids.us" and be done with it.

It's dead easy to force the proxy to only pass urls ending in kids.us (which means raw IP address urls would be blocked)

Another sign of the US becoming a Police State

[schatten]

Has it really come to this? I keep thinking that Bush will pull through and be a good guy. However, this latest move is just a bad move with a good motive.

This police state controls only a little part of us, even if it is the little kids. But restricting kids to the underage section well... I don't see how this will be helpful in any case.

They should start with pushing pay-for-porn or banner-filled porn sights to an .xxx domain, not a kids.us domain. It should be moving the problem to something that can be filtered, not creating a new section that can create its own problems.

Re:Another sign of the US becoming a Police State

[stratjakt]

How can you force porn to .xxx domain? They have every right to free expression, and a .com domain, that you have.

THAT would be the start of a police state. This isn't. This is voluntary on both ends, and a perfectly practical solution to the problem.

If you want to set up a kiddy site, you don't have to do it on kids.us, and if you want your kids to see cnn.com, you can let 'em.

But, of course, everything to someone like you is 'another sign of the US becoming a police state.'

It really does make filtering easy

[psicE]

# cat /etc/hosts

127.0.0.1 *.kids.us

#

Looks good to me

[TekPolitik]

The idea here is obviously to create a domain that kids can use unsupervised, so you would limit their machines to that domain by use of a proxy of some description. If they need access to things outside that domain, they can do so under supervision

Inability to access other content is unlikely to be a problem anyway, since it's not merely a question of whether content is suitable for kids, but whether it is targetted to kids. Pre-teen kids aren't usually much interested in content that's not designed for kids anyway.

If the content is targetted to kids, the domain owner is likely to register under that domain anyway.

The only thing I'd like to have seen is that it be .kids, rather than .kids.us, but I guess the limitation to .us is for political reasons - surprisingly, for Bush, in an effort not to appear to be acting as the President of the World.

Scooby doo...

[FyRE666]

.. if you want to register goatse.kids.us ...

Actually that's an interesting point, would you actually be able to register "questionable" hostnames like fetishsex.kids.us, or Id-have-gotten-away-with-it-too-ifn-it-hadnt-have- been-for-those-those-meddling.kids.us?

Already've done that

[sielwolf]

It would be much more sensible to create a domain of non-kid-"safe" content.

It's called Soylent dot com. Home of Rotten.com, Bonzai Kitten, Gaping Maw, Boners, Brutal, and Jerk City... i.e. all the good stuff.

I don't see how...

[Remik]

It seems your suggestion would be an even greater burden on individuals...requiring a specific group to register in a specific manner, and it would be less effective as well.

In this new system the government does not force anyone to register a certain way. All they are doing is telling parents that .kids.us domains have been proven to be 'kid friendly'. So, if you want to be an overprotective parent, don't allow them outside that scope.

If, however, they instead made all pr0n sites use .xxx, then there is still a myriad of things that are not 'kid friendly' out there for kids to wander into. And, telling parents to keep their kids away from .xxx sites accomplishes much less.

-R

What about email servers on the .kid.us domain?

[Halo5]

Are they gonna prosecute porn spammers to email servers on that domain? If so, a lot of adults (including me) will want a .kid.us email account!

Also, a new venture as a non-free (say $5-$10 a month) email service might be a good idea. As an ISP, all you would have to do is report spammers to the USG.

Re:What about email servers on the .kid.us domain?

[anthony_dipierro]

Why would they make it illegal to send certain types of email to that domain? Sounds like a violation of the first amendment to me.

Re:What about email servers on the .kid.us domain?

[Halo5]

Although IANAL, I don't think First Amendment rights apply here as it is an "opt-in" domain (In other words, A person's rights aren't restricted because they can still use the regular Internet for their content).

Here is a good analogy: On our college campus, there are designated areas where groups can stage protests/demonstrations. While it is perfectly OK to protest/demonstrate, you can only do so in those areas. This is done in order to make demonstrations "more manageable" for the University administration. While many may not agree with this type of thing, I think there is definitely precedent here.

Easy Filtering

[slaker]

Yup, easy filtering. Now I have a way to filter out some of those stupid kid's sites that are keeping me from finding more porno.

So....

[jsse]

our kids are safe now, dear Bush?

I'm awaiting next legistration to mandate that those kids are not allowed to access anything other than kids.us.

Thanks a lot, God Bless America.

Organization

[Anonymous Coward]

This will fail miserable because most of the good content is on .com, .net, etc...So, if you build USHISTORY.kids.us you'll have to copy everything from the normal web to your site since you can't link out.

Plus, how is anyone going to know about other kids.us sites? Oh, wait:

http://www.google.kids.us

I can see it now: "Over 3423 pages indexed"

spam.kids.us? ads are off site links too

[johnpaul191]

so they would have to disable any offsite links that are not going to *.kids.us.... and i assume that would include banner ads? wierd..... so would there be kid-specific pop ups too?
i would think the news would be a mess to run because they sometimes include links. it would end up being a whole new site, so i guess they could "tone it down". i guess i should have looked to see what the target age group is before overpondering.
maybe it's more thought out.. but in general it seems like a major headache.... though maybe a good idea. talking to some parents i have noticed how darn scared they are about letting their kids online (even early teenagers).....
i could see people liking it if there is someplace you could let your 6 year old romp with no fears of pr0n, or them signing up for credit cards or something.

Re:spam.kids.us? ads are off site links too

[Zork the Almighty]

To anyone who is hesitating, check out the goatsee link.

What difference does that make?

[Sanity]

For example, a Swedish court recently decided that Pokimon had to remove the phrase "Gotta catch em' all!" from their cartoons, since it was determined that the only purpose of this phrase was encouragement to children to buy Pokimon characters.

AFAIK there is nothing to stop Pokimon from having a pokimon.kids.us website which can be linked to from advertisments within the kids.us domain.

As far as I am concerned, Pokimon is a cynical manipulation of children for profit. Marketing to children seeks to brainwash them into thinking that happiness is having the latest Nike trainers and drinking Pepsi.

Looking at countries like the US, and the frequency with which I hear the words "I want" whenever I am around American kids - I guess it is working beautifully.

Re:What difference does that make?

[Sanity]

And if the kid's parents don't care then let it happen. It's not your job to take over as surrogate parent, you arrogant bastard. Education is the key, not control.

It is nice to see that you are so confident in your opinions that you don't even have the courage to put your name to them.

Anyway, your argument is idiotic. The kids.us domain is a way to help parents to protect their children, not to do it whether they like it or not.

Re:What difference does that make?

[Sanity]

But since you've advocated the banning of advertisements, it's going to help parents protect their children the way *you* like it.

And, if it does have advertisments, then it is the way that you like it - so what?

The important question is - irrespective of who "likes it" or not, what is better for children.

I can start a private club and tell people that if they want to be or remain a member of my club, then they may not say certain things. Is this censorship? Not really, they are still free to say what they want to say, but I am still free to kick them out of my club for saying it.

Re:What's Really Going On Here?

[susano_otter]

It's not censorship. Obviously.

I think *you're* missing the point

[GuyMannDude]

Most of the posts I've read seem to miss the point...No one is going to pretend that the kids have access to the 'net at large -- that's not what they want. They just want a guaranteed 'safe' way to expose their kids to some educational resources.

Now, I think that you're the one missing the point of the others. Yes, I think we all understand that this isn't meant to be an ideal solution but I would argue that it's not a solution at all. Worse, it's a non-solution pretending to be a solution. I would argue there is no "guaranteed safe way" to provide information to children since there will never be a concensus on what is "safe". Invariably there will be some stuff on kids.us that someone will decide is inappropriate and we'll be right back where we started from. I think it's best to force parents to realize that there will never be a "guaranteed safe" way to surf the web and not to use this kids.us to give them a warm, fuzzy feeling.

You have to realize that a lot of us here also get goosebumps whenever the government is given the job of "approving" any information source, even if it's in the name of the children. The whole idea of government-approved information sources (consciously or not) stirs up bad images of communist and totalitarian regimes.

GMD

Re:I think *you're* missing the point

[swillden]

I would argue there is no "guaranteed safe way" to provide information to children since there will never be a concensus on what is "safe".

Come down out of your ivory tower and take a look at the real world -- it's messy, has no problems that have 100% perfect solutions, is mostly run by boneheads who make compromises based on tradeoffs about things they don't understand -- and it works pretty well anyway, by and large.

Who *cares* if the kids.us solution isn't 100% perfect? What is? Sure there will be some controversy and some argument about what is and is not "safe", but the result will be content that 95% of the population agrees is just fine for their kids, or at least not too bad. That's compared to about 0.001% of the population that currently believes the same statement about the Internet.

It doesn't have to be perfect to be useful.

Re:I think *you're* missing the point

[alfredw]

You have to realize that a lot of us here also get goosebumps whenever the government is given the job of "approving" any information source, even if it's in the name of the children. The whole idea of government-approved information sources (consciously or not) stirs up bad images of communist and totalitarian regimes.

I think, ultimately, the solution to this American fear is to look at Canada and the UK. Both of state-run media outlets (the CBC and the BBC respectively), which are highly respected for the quality of their news programming. How does it work? Being run independently, at arms-length. I'm not sure about how the .kids.us idea decides what's "good" and what isn't, but it seems to me that creating a totally independent commission (or the equivalent of a crown-corporation like the CBC or Canada Post) would help to allay these concerns and make for a better sub-web.

can we get a free.porn.us

[SuperDuG]

I'm tired of having to search so much for free porn, I know ninenine and autopr0n are on /., but there's more ... I know it ... please dubya ... please

Re:uh, gee (Strict Scrutiny)

[pmineiro]

Actually, i'm just being cynical, i guess that is a pretty good idea.. a kid-safe playground that you can let your children run free on without any worry they'll run across anything "bad".

Agreed ... because it allows the bad stuff to stay around.

The reason there are 7 words on the radio you can't say is because radio is a broadcast medium, and the US Supreme Court ruled that since people can't stop the broadcast from reaching them, a weaker interpretation of the first amendment holds relative to non-broadcast medium. Not my favorite case law, but that's the way it happened.

Now the court has been really really good about saying that broadcast arguments don't apply to the internet. The rationale is, since you request stuff, you can easily avoid offensive material by not requesting it.

That's exactly what .kids.us facilitates. I love it, cuz it means more pr0n for me.

-- p

Re:Great, now just another domain everyone will ne

[Animaether]

"Every company is going to be forced to get a kids domain now, or be left out of this "new internet"."

I weep for John Q. Porn indeed.
What's the problem here, exactly ?
That You can't draw attention from the kid-safe domains ? Oh how horrible indeed.
Here's an idea.. You could setup a kid-safe site, apply, and get in.

You can't use google ? shoot.. how horrible..
I guess You're imagining that kids.us won't have an internal search engine then ?
After all, all the kids should be able to find the information they want just by clicking all over the place ? Nuh-uh.

And why indeed would You want to link to CNN headlines ??
"Dominatrix pleads not guilty to murder charge"
Oh yes, I'm sure kids.us will want to explain that one to the kids ;)

How about linking to cnn.kids.us
or just
news.kids.us
kid-safe news for the kid-safe domain.

Here in The Netherlands, we have a special news broadcast called "Jeugdjournaal", it's for kids from age 6-14 or something.
It presents all the news that is 'fit' for kids (i.e. no dominatrices) in a kid-safe kind of way.
This broadcast is also government run, and I haven't seen any specific bias.
They've reported on just about everything the regular news has, just brings it in a more light-hearted tone.

For example, they'll happily tell kids that Israelis shot dead Palestine kids who were throwing rocks at soldiers.
But they won't show the blood and gore that's smeared all over the streets and bodybads being carried away.
They also explain -why- the kids were throwing rocks, and why the Israeli's opened fire on them.
Totally objective.. the kids can make up their own mind on whether the Israeli's were okay on opening fire and killing them.

That's the only really scary thing that You might wonder about with kids.us - the -way- information is presented. Not -what- information per se.

That makes 6cts now...

.kids.us pr0n proxy

[pmineiro]

mark my words ... some young perl hacker is going to whip something up.

-- p

Re:.kids.us pr0n proxy

[LostCluster]

And then get his domain revoked within hours. Registration fee go bye-bye!

umm

[nzkoz]

what's to stop naked.kids.us pointing to horny.kids.us

?

I got modded down 'cause I was against this!

[Newer Guy]

I got modded down 'cause I was against this..which shows how purely clueless some are. First off, the Government is going about this BACKWARDS...they should have instead adopted the domain .xxx or similar and required all the 'bad' stuff to be there! What they did instead is the equilavent of fencing the children IN as opposed to keeping the bad stuff OUT! But then we do this all the time in the USA these days, don't we? Instead of cleaning the streets of criminals, we instead lock ourselves in our homes! Look, I'm tired of the Govt. in the USA deciding things for me and my family. I raised three kids, the oldest a girl who's a Freshman at Harvard now..and I did it without Govt. help. My kids all used (and use) the 'net and I supervise them. Also, I raised them right...they know what to look at and what not to..and they ask me when they need advice. Why should I (and they) be forced have to lower myself to SOMEONE ELSE'S lowest common denominator..why can't they RAISE themselves up to mine? We have laws that limit people's access by age to movies,..to cigarettes, to drinking..to driving...even to viewing certain TV shows. We don't BAN them from coming into a movie theater building where there's an R movie playing on the next screen..or a food store that happens to sell cigarettes and liquor..or the TV completely..yet so many of you here are simply GUSHING about a domain that does EXACTLY that! Why would you want to do this? Again I say..it's stupid and makes no sense!

Re:I got modded down 'cause I was against this!

[bstadil]

No this is much better. Let the ones with "special needs" go play in they own sandbox. They can do whatever they want in the Kids.us domain and I would never need to worry about it. If your plan of XXX domain was implemented who was to say what was xxx material and what is not? This way we have preserved Free speech and given the ones that wants to be subject to censoring a mechanism to play.

Re:I got modded down 'cause I was against this!

[Anarchofascist]

NO I think you got MODDED DOWN because of he amount of SHOUTING that you are doing and the number of EXCLAMATION POINTS you inserted into your message. That said, you are a useful foil, so here we go:

"First off, the Government is going about this BACKWARDS...they should have instead adopted the domain .xxx or similar and required all the 'bad' stuff to be there!"

How are you going to make Johannes Q Awerage from Bulgaria host sexyvirgins.com in sexyvirgins.xxx? Honestly, do you have any idea how the net works?

"We don't BAN them from coming into a movie theater building where there's an R movie playing on the next screen..or a food store that happens to sell cigarettes and liquor..."

Your analogy, like your logic, has flaws that could be spotted by a six-year-old.

No, we do not ban children from coming to a theatre building where an R movie is being played, BUT we can take children to Disneyland, and part of the appeal of Disneyland is that you can watch Snow White in one cinema without having to walk past another cinema showing ads for Snow White Does Dallas.

Note that you and I are not forced to go to Disneyland. We are not forced to stop our children from going to a normal cinema. However, the world is improved by making this option available, and this option is currently not available on the net.

I just have to put up my hand and say this is a "good thing". Just because Bush is a sock puppet dupe of the high-tech military (which has to test its new weapons in a real theatre of war every ten years doesn't preclude his staff from having the occasional good idea.

.ca....

[Barbarian]

Actually you're a bit wrong on that, you MUST be in Canada to register a .ca domain

http://www.ca/

Hopefully librarians. . .

[kfg]

both in and out of schools, will be using all the focus on the internet as a distraction while quitely slipping these subversive documents called "books" to "kids" under the table.

I recommend "Farenheit 451", "Lies my Teacher Told Me" and "Welcome to the Monkey House" for starters.

Indeed, any librarian who isn't doint this isn't a libraian at all, just a book filing clerk, and should find some other line of work.

KFG

Re:Hopefully librarians. . .

[Sycraft-fu]

Kinda of off topic, but Lies my Teacher Told me is one of my favourite non-fiction books. It is an excellent history book, and one that still sits on my shelf.

Meta Information

[pneuma_66]

The problem with adding meta-information to existing sites, is that anyone can add them to their html code. There is no way to prevent some unscrupulous person using meta-information on their porn site, and saying it is a kid safe site. The only way to verify that would be to have an external server verify the meta-information. The kids.us domain does this, without adding another protocol to handle within the browser.
I, am not using this to defend the kids.us domain, I am just saying there is a flaw to your logic

Re:Meta Information

[donutello]

Read what I said about certificates. You could replace the meta data with a certificate that would only be issued to companies that qualified. And that certificate could be withdrawn....

Re:Meta Information

[Theaetetus]

Because certificates are so secure... like the Microsoft ones that they issued the warning to not trust.

No, I agree with prior parent - having a third-party server (the DNS for the kids.domain) is the only way to keep people from spoofing it and having their porn site on there.

-T

Re:Meta Information

[shaitand]

Censoring is ridiculus enough as is, it hardly requires the same degree of security my credit card information does. Giving it equal to what my credit card has would be FAR beyond up to the task.

Overly technical legislation

[CaptainSuperBoy]

Overly technical legislation is never good.. this is like spam laws that say you have to put ADV in the subject. What about wireless and other non-SMTP spam? There are plenty of ways to spam someone that don't include a subject field.

In the same way, there are plenty of ways to 'link' to a site. Does this only restrict A HREF? How about setting window.location in Javascript? Or I could make a dummy form and use buttons for links. What if I put in the URL of a porn site but don't make the link clickable? What if I just mention a web site's name, as in "I bought it on the eBay site?" Also, if I own a .kids.us domain am I liable for content on message boards? Am I liable if my site gets hacked and someone posts links to Yahoo.com?

Re:First dibs

[Orne]

So I guess nambla.kids.us is right out?

how long...

[shaitand]

how long before it's revealed that this is a test bed for regulated internet in general. Before they grandfather in current large commercial domain names and start content restriction across the board.

Re:Finally! My 800th post, and Amazingly Insightfu

[bstadil]

This George is a few years older but WAY smarter.

Re:not cynical

[octalgirl]

"It sure is good to know that our children will be safe from being accidentally redirected to dangerous, kid-unfriendly sites like www.cnn.com when they're hanging around nickelodeon.kids.us. Way to go, GWB.

Actually, i'm just being cynical, i guess that is a pretty good idea"

I don't think it's cynical, because I'm thinking the same thing. Having the kids.us is good, but not allowing to link outside of itself will be its downfall. There are thousands of well established sites for kids - Nickelodeon as you mentioned, Yahooligans, Disney, Connectedlearning, tons of homework sites, keeping kids safe sites, even the new york times has a section on education where kids can go for homework help. Do the bozo's who thought up that requirement honestly believe the entire web infrastructure will re-build itself around this? Do they expect everyone to duplicate what they already have and mirror it in a secure area? The $$ and manpower to do everything twice -- it's just not realisic and I can't see this happening.

.kids.us is an awful idea

[Erpo]

This is an awful idea! It's been asked over and over again: Who decides what is safe for kids? Since there are so many differing opinions on what is ok, it only makes sense to let the parents decide individually.

Specific metadata needs to be available for content which can then be filtered by policy. There's already a well defined system in place to support this: ICRA (formerly RSACi). A simple tag on each web page (or just the root for the site) tells what content the page or site contains. It can then be left up to parents to set access permissions, like no viewing of nudity except in an artistic context, or no graphic violence.

Labeling can't be mandated directly, but here's an easy way to make ICRA universal:

1. Give tax incentives to businesses that use ICRA labels, and make it a crime to misrepresent a site by placing incorrect ICRA labels in pages. There wouldn't be any legal suits (at least any with merit) over page misrepresentation as ICRA tags describe in very concrete terms what a page contains (e.g. full frontal nudity, descriptions of drug use, etc...) rather than value judgements (e.g. kid safe).

2. Wait until ICRA becomes mainstream, then ship browsers that default to blocking sites that don't rate themselves.

3. Remove the tax incentives.

Unlike creating a new .us domain (or tld, I've seen both reported), there are no ongoing costs. After the tax incentives are repealed, web page authors will be forced to rate their pages if they want to be seen.

I'm not saying anything new here. This has been around for a long time.

Could be a good thing!

[Mustang Matt]

"And also how the hell are they going to to stop the pedo's abusing this. Domain name and IP spoofing as well as email and the rest could lead to a situation no one wants to see."

I know a lot of people are against spam legislation, but since none of us have come up with a decent software solution (filtering SUCKS as a permanent solution!!!), maybe this will force the gov't. to come up with a commendable anti-abuse policy for the internet including addressing the worst kinds of unsolicited email.

Re:Kids watch the news??

[shaitand]

What is safe, that's simple, whatever the kid chooses to seek out. If your kid hunts down bondage bimbo with barb wire bra sites, guess what, your sheltering isn't working anyway, obviously he/she has handled that subject already whether you feel they are mentally prepared for it or not. Get over it, start doing your job and worrying more about making sure your kids DO know certain things instead of worrying so much about what you don't feel they should. Censoring is wrong, it's those who don't wish to see certain things that should have to go elsewhere, not those that do, that is what freedom of speech is all about. If you don't want to see a dedicated lesbian nazi site because you find it offensive, go elsewhere. Every harsh reality of life that children are exposed to better prepares them for life. I've never understood why people feel that it in some way helps a child to live in a fantasy world until a certain age. I suppose it would make sense to someone who believes in fairy tales like morals, and religious ethics... things that have to be taught in a fantasy setting because someone as intuitive as a child would see through them if exposed to reality before they could be set in.

This is of course just my opinion cast out as food for thought. I'll raise my children the way I believe prepares them best for the real world and best prepares them with the greatest volume of knowledge (power). And you raise yours in the way that best suits your ideas of things (or whatever you place priority on).

Advertising Revenue

[tekunokurato]

I worry about the loss in ad revenue that will affect sites that move some content to .kids. Even though it's less of a factor than it used to be, it's still important, and there will be little financial benefit to creating kids-only content for non-kiddy sites.

Why does society believe this anyway?

[fishbowl]

The whole idea of supressing information of any kind, to anyone, for any reason at all, strikes me as a bizarre artifact of our civilization.

I wonder if it is possible that the whole problem with society is in part DUE TO the fact we withhold information? Governments don't tell what they know. Businesses keep secrets from their employees, investors, other businesses. We think children should not be exposed to certain things. We even think adults shouldn't be exposed to certain things.

What if it were completely the other way around?

What if, no matter how ugly it seems to our current thinking, and no matter how ridiculously impossible it would seem to implement, we let everyone have any information they wanted. We didn't cram it down their throats, but we didn't stop them from learning.

When I was a very gifted child of 6, I was reading at just about the same level that I was when starting high school. There was very little that I could understand at the age of 14 that I could not have understood at the age of 6. I was painfully aware of this at the time, but not able to express the problem to a teacher. I read Shakespeare, Virgil, the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, and as much of our encyclopedia as I found interesting, because those were the books in our family room. I read my mom's gothic novels. I read my dad's Peterbilt service manuals. I knew some real estate lingo. From having to hang around in some of my parents' offices for long periods of time, I learned things like how teletype paper tape worked (and could recognize some characters!)

I read the paper and fully understood the impact of the war in Vietnam, and even understood some of the implications of us being in Cambodia. I remember being puzzled by the fact that the country was at war, but this would not be discussed in school.

I think if there'd been algebra, trig, and calculus books in our house, I'd have been able to deal with them as well. I was by far the most literate person in my first, second, and third grade. Was I ever encouraged to read? By anyone? HELL NO. I'm not sure I can say I was directly punished for it, but, that's exactly how I feel about it thirty years later.

What I'm saying is, the very idea that there are some things that should be, and some things that should not be, exposed to a child, makes no sense to me.

I have to wonder if it could be due to the very nature of suppression that we have some of the problems for which we perceive the solution is censorship. For example, porn, or violent subject matter. We make those things into the mysterious grown-up stuff on the shelf we're not supposed to reach. It just makes us hungry for it. Putting it on the high shelf and saying "that's not for you because you're a kid" just gives it that much more perceived value! Then, when we approach the age where we are better equipped to seek out this material, which happens to be LONG before the "approved" age, we seek it with passion. When we find that it is STILL being kept from us, sometimes we just create it ourselves -- we become sexually active sooner, or we become violent.

Could the censorship be the very thing that brings us the consequences for which we believe censorship is the answer?

Re:Kids watch the news??

[Atzanteol]

If your kid hunts down bondage bimbo with barb wire bra sites, guess what, your sheltering isn't working anyway, obviously he/she has handled that subject already whether you feel they are mentally prepared for it or not.

Since when are children able to make these decisions? There are reasons parents must guide children as they grow older, and why *most* parents won't purchase biker porn for their children. Children don't yet have a concept of right and wrong, and while they are learning those concepts, they must be guided, restricted, and punished for doing wrong.

Let children be naive for at least a little while, before adult-hood ruins it for them. Mr. Rogers (childrens program in U.S.) is much better for todlers than, say, the evening news. They don't yet have to deal with the problems of the world. Christ, they are still dealing with tying their shoes!

Until the schools begin blocking, that is.....

[Newer Guy]

Then my kids become affected while at school. Let the schools use 'net nanny' to block sites on an 'as found' basis.

Re:Bad solution. - No!!

[susano_otter]

Because, of course, all your TLD are belong to .us!

I'm not sure I understand this distinction....

[cyberon22]

If restricting the use of regular domain names constitutes a 1st amendment violation, the implication is that the expression of domain names constitutes an act of "speech".

In which case why is it OK for the government to prohibit anyone from doing whatever they want to .kids.us websites?

The above argument seems analogous to saying that the government cannot prohibit people from talking about politics, but it CAN prevent people from talking about Barney because the latter kind of discussion is "opt-in".

This is crap - betrayal of WWW's purpose.

[Dogun]

What a fool.
Now no .kids.us sites can reference anything upper-brow, as upper-brow sites won't be .kids.us.

I don't know about you, but I wasn't exactly interested in seeing all my kid friendly information about "Lydia" or whatever crap book I had to read back when I was in 4th or 5th grade, and I sure as hell don't want my children hanging around these labotomized websites.

This is just another excuse to push doctrine on kids - because I GARUNTEE you, no .kids.us site is going to mention that the first mention on Thanksgiving was in 1863, or that the Plymouth 'pilgrims' were first mentioned as such in 1870; .kids.us is committed to the wrong idea.

We need to be USING this wealth of knowledge that we have created for ourselves and our children. We need to be exposing them to powerful ideas at young ages; we need those kids who want to learn about the lies of their history to be able to learn about them, we need kids to be able to access information about draft dogders, we need to let our children be able to listen to dirty music, and yes, we need to let them see hate literature, to make what they will of it - and hopefully it generates disgust, but they damned well need the CHOICE to be disgusted.

WE MADE A DREAM of knowledge - we were spoonfed knowledge and WE WERE TIRED of it - BBS's, USENET, ... and though the Web may as well be some governement defense project the fact is that the information is the collective talents of our world, for better or for worse.

Our kids must grow up in this world we have created for them - this INFORMATION world. This kid-safe subsection - it's crap. No offense, but if this .kids.us document were a person, I would beat him senseless and piss on his wretched limp body after I was done with him.

That being said, I make a final plea - .kids.us is a huge mistake.

You want to protect your libraries? Look at your homes first - how can you claim to respect knowledge when you block it out of the very place you live in, and shield your young, your curious from the wealth they seek? If you buy into this .kids.us crap, or buy filtering software, you might as well walk to your local library, strike up a book of matches and start burning, and while you're at it, burn your schools, public and private, and kill everyone who has every said anything intelligent.

I'm sorry I ranted but this is one of the few times in my life that something bad has happened that is unlikely to be overturned, despite the efforts of everyone out there. Tonight, I praise all of you with bloody knuckles because of the pent up fury of this attrocity against knowledge, learning, and the betterment of our society.

May the world weep.

Re:Kids watch the news??

[shaitand]

Since they are more mature than your or I was at the same age, fairly consistantly across the board. We are qualified to determine what they are capable of deciding. 1 we were probably never given the opportunity to deal with things ourselves at that age. 2 as I've said they are more mature/intelligent at any random age than we were. 3 I'm not saying go out and purchase biker porn for your child, I'm saying don't lobby to have the local biker porn shop shutdown so your kid won't walk by it. Or make a concious effort to prevent them from discovering there is such a thing as biker porn on this place called earth. Hell the fact you've hidden it from them is half the reason they seek it out! A 5yr old has little interest in biker porn and might give it a good 30 seconds of curiousity before moving on to the next item. If they are really curious for one reason or another, it's you their going to ask, the all knowing mom or dad (at an age where they actually believe mom and dad are all knowing and express "my mom said so" as their reason for unequivicolly believing this or that.). If a 13yr old comes across biker porn, their going to do the same thing with it dad does, and with no greater harm being done, none.

Re:How long will it be?

[Webmoth]

How long will it be before we see www.hotstuds.kids.us?

Few problems.

[iamroot]

I'm sure this probably will have been said several time by the time I click submit but:

While I think that creating a dot kids domain isn't necessarily a bad thing, there may be a few problems.

The first, and perhaps most obvious problem is classifying something as "kids safe" or "not kids safe". "kids" is a very broad definition. I mean, would you seriously apply the same standards to a 16 year old as you would an 8 year old? Some things (like goatse) are obviously "not kids safe", and some things are obviously "kids safe". Unfortunately, probably 90% of websites are in the grey area.

It really depends on an individual view-point. Some people would consider even the most mild things offensive, and some wouldn't. All it takes is one single curse word on some page of a site(more or less), and the site potentially could fall into the grey area between "kids safe" and "not kids safe".

Sites with some dynamic interactive content(i.e. forums, comment boards, guestbooks, etc...) would be automatically in the grey area, since who knows what could appear there, although they are forbidden by the bill anyway.

But what will the standards be? Even if they are relatively simple, you run into all sorts of problems. For example, say the only rule is "no porn". Okay, how do you really define porn? Thats a very broad definition. As I said before, some thing are definitely porn, and some are not, but many are in between. Okay, say you make the rule simpler. No nudity. Well, even thats a bit broader, and could have many problems. So you define exactly what is meant by nudity. Well, then you run into the problem that nudity alone is not harmful. You could have pornographic pictures that do not meet the definition of nudity. Okay, so no pictures with nudity or sexual acts/references. By the time you're done with a good definition, you've already excluded most of the websites on the internet. In fact, I can't think of a single website I frequently visit that wouldn't fail a test like that.

There probably won't be many useful sites there at all.

Secondly, back to the issue with age groups. Saying absolutely no possibly offensive material is okay for little kids, but what about teenagers. I remember having to do a school report about the Holocaust, and I think many people would consider sites about the Holocaust unsafe for little kids. I also had to do several reports dealing with science/medicine. Even a relatively simple no-nudity rule has problems then. Remember that the WHOLE site has to be "kids safe". Many medical sites have nudity somewhere to some degree.

Although its not 100% related, I think I should also bring up the idea of creating a .XXX domain. It would probably be a good thing to have one. The problem is if sites are forced to move to .XXX. Now, actual porn sites shouldn't have as much of a problem moving their domains. But what about sites that AREN'T porn sites, yet contain nudity, or even pornography. My site, for example, has a funny picture archive, and I'm sure some of those have nudity, or may be mildly pornographic. However, it is NOT intended as a porn site by any amount.

Anyways, back to the .kids domain. "So what's the problem?", you might ask, "Its only designed as a domain that parents can let their kids use without being worried.". I wish that would be true. Unfortunately, thats not what will happen. It'll be used as a whitelist for censorware. Schools will then end up only letting kids use the .kids domain. Even libraries may be affected.
Oh well, at least its not a mandatory .XXX domain.

Agreed

[0x0d0a]

Real parenting is hard.

I strongly agree. Trying to keep your kids from running into content is futile; to keep them from running into content until they are "mature enough" is silly -- how is one to gain maturity without experience?

I give it 2 weeks

[dracocat]

I say 2 weeks after the domain is available we will see the article about a porn site that came up in the domain.

ThereIsNoSanta.kids.us ?

[nanop]

So I'm curious ...
I'd like to register ThereIsNoSanta.kids.us. My target audience would be elementary school children. My goals would be to dispell the myth of Santa in a non-confrontational manner and explain the true nature of the holiday season (where friends and family matter more than the number of gifts under the tree).

The belief: if children where to spend less time wondering what Santa was bringing them and more time being thankful for what they have, perhaps this manner of thinking would be carried on as they mature.

A far-fetched idea? Maybe. But would a government-appointed agency by able to define this as inappropriate for kids?

An 8 year old should not

[Archfeld]

be surfing without supervision, but the point is well taken. My big fear is that the kids will be turned loose in there and profiled and marketed to like no other audience.

Beautiful

[0x0d0a]

I really don't think I could have put this any better myself. It's a shame that there aren't more parents like you -- I personally think it's a terribly scarring experience to have your parents try to hide things from you.

The viewpoint has slowly but steadily shifted away from decieving children -- old movies with a noble uncle telling Jimmy that his parents "went away" are less and less visible. It's still vogue in parenting magazines and the sort to pretend that sex doesn't exist (though violence seems to be quite acceptable). Changle will happen -- it's inevitable -- and a few generations from now, people will look back on our society with the same sort of incredulous contempt that we look on Victorian England.

I always had a wonderful relationship with my parents. They never ever lied to me, and tried to support and advise me as best they could. In return, I felt comfortable with telling them anything. Parents that expect their children to be open and truthful with them should lead by example.

Re:Beautiful

[DrSkwid]

I personally think it's a terribly scarring experience to have your parents try to hide things from you.

Adult behaviour can be disturbing to children. This can stimulate the hypothalmus which negotiates mood and future mood. Associating normal adult behaviour with a negative experience can lead to challenges in later life.

If you and your partner were experimenting in sado-masochistic sex would you be happy for your 6 year old to watch?

They never ever lied to me
That can't possibly be true
Because lying is a human tour dé force.
We choose which bits of the truth to tell in order to filter out the necessary detail.

Or maybe you don't, who am I to pre-judge. I just know that for the most part people don't say :

"sorry I took a while, you caught me in the middle of having a wank"

Why is this government-controlled?

[0x0d0a]

Apparently, .cn has similar restrictions...

Which is an excellent example of why governments should not get their hands involved.

I simply do not see why the government needs to run something like this, or put laws in place. It's quite easy for a private company to build (and spider) a *.kids.com domain or something similar. A DNS server, and a bit of spider code, maybe a few months of work. You resell DNS service to ISPs, ISPs sell it as a value-added bit to add appeal. No government intervention required.

Aside from sucking up to Republican conservatives, this simply doesn't have much point.

Furthermore, it's going to open a whole can of worms. If my tax dollars are going to support the company with the contract, what if my definition of what's "appropriate" differs from someone else? I can already see fights and lawsuits brewing over this, all of which would not be a problem if this was simply handled in the private sector.

If you want responsible citizens tomorrow, America, teach the children of today to be responsible. Let them see whatever content they want -- and teach them to deal with it responsibly.

Re:Why is this government-controlled?

[Hans Lehmann]

It's quite easy for a private company to build (and spider) a *.kids.com domain or something similar.

So why hasn't a private company done this yet?
Because there's no profit in it. A private company is not about to invest in a venture like this unless they have some assurance of making a profit from it, which these days usually requires popup ads for XXX sites and penis enlargement products.
The government, as crappy and corrupt as it is, at least makes some passing attempt at doing things for the public good. A private company, on the other hand, will only do what's good for them, and not one iota more.

Let them see whatever content they want -- and teach them to deal with it responsibly.

You obviously have no children of your own.

Re:Why is this government-controlled?

[0x0d0a]

Because there's no profit in it.

I just described how a reasonable profit could be made. An ISP ships censorware combined with DNS service from this company. Not that difficult.

You obviously have no children of your own

You are correct, though your insinuation that this disqualifies me from having valid opinions on the matter is simply stupid. My ideas are based on my own childhood. My parents were always quite honest with me. They did not go out of their way to expose me to violence or nudity or deaths in the family, but they never attempted to hide it or lie about it. Whenever possible, they'd go over something like this with me. If they said that driving a car without a seat belt was a bad idea, they'd justify it.

I have tremendous respect for my parents because of this. I think that this is not something innate. Parents that say that children should simply follow their morals and instructions because they "are their parents" *might* have gratitude or at least control over rewards and punishments to the child to try to force them to follow their own ideals. They might succeed, at least in the short term. But I think that such a parent could never achieve the same sense of trust that I had with my parents.

Children follow their parents' lead best when their parents have shown themselves to be consistently right, not when they try to force children to follow their lead. If you want a child who will be a leader, who will be responsible and independent, then I think you need to raise him in such an environment.

I know this will probably rankle a few parents -- everyone has their own ideas on what is best for a child. I still think that honesty really *is* the best policy. Let your children know the weaker, less perfect side of people. Let them see their parents as human -- loving humans, someone that they can be friends with as well as child to. A parent shouldn't try to be a God-like being that issues edicts from on high.

Re:Why is this government-controlled?

[Alsee]

this simply doesn't have much point.

I think .kids.us is just as stupid as you do, however I think it serves an excellent function - it's a good sandbox were the idiots can successfully implement their dumb ideas without damaging the rest of the internet.

If my tax dollars are going to support

Think of it as cheap and effective solution to the idiot problem.

I can already see fights and lawsuits brewing over this

Yep, it will keep them far too busy busy to cause damage :)

if my definition of what's "appropriate" differs from someone else?

Ignore them and stick with the real internet. :) Big threat I see is that at some point you may have to specificly order your school system to give your kids full internet access. At least you can guarantee full access at home.

Let them see whatever content they want -- and teach them to deal with it responsibly.

[Gasps in mock horror]
But we have to protect the children! You monster!

-

Re:Why is this government-controlled?

[Lumpy]

I simply do not see why the government needs to run something like this, or put laws in place. It's quite easy for a private company to build (and spider) a *.kids.com domain or something similar.

Bla...bla....bla....
if is soo easy for it to happen then why didn't it?

usually the government steps in when industry fails.. and yes the "internet" industry has failed miserably to control it's self. with pors sites intentionally popping up with similar names to kids toys and sites the kids would go to. just have your 10 year old daughter type in www.bratzdolls.com and have your porn full.

I as a father am sick and tired of the idiots and morons like you screaming "there isn't a need! there isn't any trouble!" and I am sick and tired of having to chase my daughter out of the room so I can search and find what she wants so she isnt attacked by the ration of 2 to one of porn on topics she wants information on.

when she searches for britiney spears... she shoud not get 60 porn sites ,3 hardcore nasty porn sites and 6 actual sites with what she wants.

I personally think that they should force all porn to .porn TLD and solve the problem once and for all. but people will whine, these are the same people that dont have the balls to park in front of the dirty book store.

the internet is a information trading tool... not a porn entertainment center, unfortunately it's becoming that first and foremost. Having .kids is a step in the right direction... .porn needs to be the next one... unless the internet community can police it's self. I highly doubt it.

Re:Why is this government-controlled?

[BlackHawk-666]

I'm with you...all porn moved to .porn, then we can doa search on google and filter out all the rubbish.

P.S. I quite enjoy porn, but it's really getting in the way of getting back meanful results from the net.

Re:Why is this government-controlled?

[Lumpy]

You, quite frankly, are an idiot

funny how the idiots try and call others idiot when they makes themselves look like FOOLS.

if you would have actually read my entire post and made a educated and though out decision before you posted you would have seen that I never EVER said that porn is evil. I firmly do believe that porn needs to be handled differently.

Many people like you scream that it's opression... well is it opression that they don't place the playboy magazines next to the childrens magazines at the store? how dare they not put the porn videos out with the rest of the other videos! Debbie does dallas belongs on the same shelf as dumbo!

Porn needs to be put in the .porn TLD, a website on yeast infections that show clinical full spread crotch photos on the front page first thing ALA goatse.cx style? yes it needs to be FORCED into the .porn TLD if they do not comply with common decency.

Re:Why is this government-controlled?

[MCZapf]

Why does porn clog search engine results? Because it can't be easily filtered. Well, maybe it can, but it would be easier if webpages had definite content identifiers built-in to them. DNS might not be the right level to do it at though. Maybe changes could be made to HTTP (think "Content-type-2: porn\n") or HTML (think <meta name="content" content="porn" />).

Anything done now, though, whether at the DNS, HTTP, or HTML would be voluntary, probably hardly used by anyone, probably misused by porn sites, and a kludge besides. This leads me to think about sites like Yahoo(!). They already categorize lots of websites for us. They already have a system for doing so. Perhaps it can be put to use.

Re:Why is this government-controlled?

[0x0d0a]

He also said, "nicely put," which is a valid reason to mod something up.

Actually, unfortunately it is not supposed to be, though in posts in the past, I've proposed that there be a +1 Well-Written (or perhaps +1 Eloquent would be better).

Surprise

[0x0d0a]

What prevents a kid-safe version of the news going up at cnn.kids.us?

And suddenly the "solution" to the problem, oddly enough, winds up directing scads of money (again) into the pockets of the name registrars.

Skip the 1st Amendment --

[MacAndrew]

-- the real problem with "adults-only" is that it only inverts the debate over what's adult and what's not, while retaining all the aggravations of monitoring and enforcement mechanisms, plus the inevitable court fights.

I respect what they're doing in principle and see no harm in it. Beats censorship and filtering, if it works.

Re:My $0.02

[0x0d0a]

"Today the owners of www.cnn.com were arrested, charged with a terrorist act for disseminating radical material -- information and links about the defacing of foo.kids.us".

Re:Kids watch the news??

[Atzanteol]

What makes you think that children are 'more mature' at the same age than we were? Just because you treat them as such, doesn't mean they are physiologically different. Children still mature at the same rate today as they did hundreds (thousands?) of years ago.

MOD PARENT UP

[mike3411]

wow, for some reason AC's have pretty much summarized my thoughts on this matter. I still think it will be tricky, but I think this guy's thoughts are the issue are valid, and the same filters we use for other products (movies, TV, magazines, etc.) will be used but with a cutoff of "G" or something similar.

But this is exactly why I'm worried about interoperability with other countries, as many European nations have very different views on what is ok for children to see, especially with regards to sexuality. I'd hate for the internet that kids see to be entirely determined by the US Gov, although any proper parenting should include guided exploration of other countries' thoughts and websites.

It'll probably be a continuing battle as these kinds of issues arise, just another reason why civil liberty / freedom of speech organizations (and their efforts) are so important : )

Not to be stereotypical...

[elefantstn]

But never has there been a better demonstration of the inability of Slashbots to procreate than the reactions in this thread. Obviously none of the "OHMYGODITSCENSORSHIP" or "OHMYGODDONTLETTHEMADVERTISE" idiots has ever attempted to raise a child, or they would be thankful for this development.

Why? It's simple -- it makes it easier for parents to supervise their children. Would I limit my kids to only visiting .kids.us sites? Of course not. There are plenty of .org and .com sites they could safely visit. But I know that if they were on .kids.us sites, I would be sure that they weren't looking at porn or anything.

What's truly fascinating is the knee-jerk Slashdot reaction to a domain that Slashbots will never visit in their entire lives. Why so angry? It's a safe area for kids. Are you upset that the local playground doesn't have laser tag? Get a grip, and let parents have this extra tool to help them.

It's a collection of short stories. . .

[kfg]

by Kurt Vonnegut. Pay particular attention to the one entitled "Harrison Bergeron," one of the greatest short social commentaries ever written and amazingly prescient.

Then check out his novel "Cat's Cradle."

Many of his stories take place in a fictionalized version of locations mere feet from where I sit right now. Kurt spent some time as a PR writer for GE. Illium, NY in the stories is Schenectady, the Illium Works are GE and the Iroquois River is the Mohawk.

Anyone who reads 1984 should also read Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World." 1984 is a vision of the future totalitarian society USSR style. Brave New World is a view of the the future totalitarian society USA style, although it's getting harder and harder to tell the two apart. I suppose there are those who would get *really* bent out of shape by this one though as the society pictured teaches sex and promiscuity to children whose age is in the single digits, not to mention government sanctioned recreational drug use.

Very Swiftian. Which reminds me, I just love turning younger people on to Gulliver's Travels, the book, as opposed to the silly movie/TV versions.

KFG

Re:Great, now just another domain everyone will ne

[anthony_dipierro]

Every company is going to be forced to get a kids domain now, or be left out of this "new internet".

Huh? Just because someone comes out with a new domain name means everyone is forced to get one? I'm going to start .kids.inbox.org. Now you all have to buy one. Hahahahaha!

spam free domain created?

[anthony_dipierro]

Now they need to pass legislation to start a .nospam.us domain and mandate that people sending mail from that domain not send spam. At the very least, it makes filtering easy.

So when do we have..

[heytal]

doubleclick.kids.us with an opt-out policy ?

Re:What about existing sites?

[brsmith4]

Nope. They could just ask me to let them into a site they want to get to. If i find it appropriate, I would let them on. That is being a responsible parent.

"I was never denied any soure of information"

[DrSkwid]

"I was never denied any soure of information"

how do you know?

There's also the observation that

"Maybe the harm it did you prevents you from seeing the harm it did to you and potentially to others"

Maybe not such a bad idea

[_Spirit]

The comments I'm reading here are mostly of the 'no censorship' 'I grew up without these restrictions and turned out ok' variety. I was pondering on that (I agreed with those comments at first, I don't mind nudity and other "objectionable" content on the net) and then I realised something: My parents were also very open and honest about the things this domain is supposed to protect children from. That being said, the time they did it in made that a lot easier, because of two things:

1. Accidental exposure was a lot less probable. The media were a little more responsible in what they showed at what hour of the day. We didn't even have daytime television when I was 10. I could watch tv and not be exposed to extreme violence or nudity or whatever.

2. My parents had a lot more control over what came into the house. I could play with a computer all I wanted without seeing anything they didn't want me to see, as there was no connection to the outside world. The Internet brings everything to your doorstep, so as soon as you are behind a computer you can find just about anything you want. Because there wasn't tv all day and we only had a few channels they would usually be around when I watched it.

Now I'm not saying that kids being exposed to all kinds of nastiness is bad per se, I mean they have to learn how things are in the outside world, but don't compare it to the way things were when you grew up 20+ years ago. When I was at my computer back then (spectrum, apple II :-) ) I didn't get any messages telling me to come look at REAL RAPE PICS XXX that I didn't ask for. Things are different now and we should adapt to that.

How long before...

[heytal]

How long before there is doubleclick.kids.us

Re:ICANN: why no .kids?

[pommiekiwifruit]

The views on what is permissible for kids to see vary from country to country, and on their behaviour.

For example in Japan they have vending machines in the street that sell alcohol, tobacco, porn, etc. I imagine that in some countries the children might not be well-behaved and might use such machines even if they were underage!

The drinking age is 16 in Germany. I understand in the USA they still have prohibition in many places, and in other places you have to be over 21.

The EU has different views to the US wrt gays (it is legal throughout EU, but illegal in many US states), death penalty (not allowed in peace time in EU), hate speech/free speech (e.g. german laws about mentioning the war), availability of firearms (compare UK with the US, where they give you a free gun when you open a bank account!), and some (e.g. Sweden) think that brainwashing kids to buy toys is unacceptable too.

So many of the things that the US thinks are kid-safe will not be acceptable to other countries, and many things that other countries think are kid-safe will not be acceptable to the US.

We have our own too

[techstar25]

It's kind of like how slashdot.org is only allowed to link to cool stuff that nerds like.

Re:Ah, the arrogance of pre-parents

[mccalli]

Kids are not miniature adults. Parents really do have to protect them, or they're lousy parents. Your parents were almost certainly protecting you, and you weren't aware of it.

Absolutely. I'm a new parent (have an eleven month old daughter), and I'm already 'censoring' what appears on TV. Violent films are watched after she's gone in the cot, violent console games are similarly banished.

I remember one time where her mother and I had wound each other up so much over something so trivial that we eventually decided to tickle each other to death over it. As per normal, I grabbed her feet and started tickling, which had her laughing and squirming away. My then six-month old daughter turned round - she had been happily playing until that moment, but on seeing what was happening she immediately burst into tears thinking that mummy and daddy were fighting with each other. That kind of thing really disturbs young kids, as we've found out.

On the wider point - please don't knock this domain. It's an excellent idea, and still allows me as a parent to exercise judgement rather than having someone else's judgement forced on me by an arbitrary law (a la Australia). Perhaps I want to only allow my kids to look at that domain. Perhaps I don't. Who knows? Well, we, her parents, do. It's our responsibility to bring up our kids, and it should be us who gets to exercise our judgements in such matters. Anything that helps us understand what to expect should be nothing but welcome.

Cheers,
Ian

Nonono,

[edremy]

It's

http://nek.kids.R.us

Too bad there's no backwards R...

Re:Nonono,

[darien]

In Soviet Union, too bad there is a backwards R!

Re:Uhm

[cscx]

Uh, yeah, it does.

Go try and register a .edu domain and let me know what happens.

Oh the sanctimonious holier than thou hath spoken.

[jotaeleemeese]

Wherever the line is drawn, there'll be assholes who want to push it to make some kind of dumb-ass freedom of speech comment, like those that think they need to teach about homosexuality in kindergarten.

My niece who is 5 years old asked me yesterday why those two gentlemen in the train were kissing.

Now, oh wise one, guardian of the moral rectitude and the correct free speech, tell me how do we hide the real world [tm] from children without somehow explaining it (in the kindergarten, the train or at home).

Like a Bookstore

[wirehead78]

Wouldn't this operate similarly to how a bookstore or a library works? There's always a kid's section. Parents know that their children can go there and find children's books. They don't have to worry about them stumbling upon something they'd object to. But at the same time, the rest of the library is still there to explore. It's just that the kid's section helps kids find exactly what they want without having to sort through other junk they (or their parents) don't want.

Credit Card Protection?

[Theaetetus]

Censoring is ridiculus enough as is, it hardly requires the same degree of security my credit card information does. Giving it equal to what my credit card has would be FAR beyond up to the task.

I disagree for two reasons - one, credit card numbers are easy to spoof. I've seen a program that can spit out thousands of valid credit card numbers. Two - credit card fraud harms the insurance companies, but not really the supposed 'victim' - the owner of the card. If someone steals your card and makes a purchase, in most states you're limited to $50 of liability.

However - if your kid sees a hardcore pr0n website, the damage has been done, in that that image that you wanted to keep them from seeing is now etched in your memory.

Now, personally, I think it is silly - kids should be exposed to this at an early age, and it shouldn't be thought of as taboo. However, if you're a parent and want to keep your kid sheltered (read: 'naive'), then the only way for that to be possible and still let your kid have internet access is to limit them to a list of servers... such as .kids.us... so that no site you don't want them seeing - such as pr0n, violence, the news, Barney, the Catholic Church, etc. - is accessable.

-T

DNS is inappropriate as a content label

[Fastolfe]

I disagree here.. DNS is meant to attach a symbolic name to a set of Internet hosts. It was never intended to be a locator for an organization, to say nothing about a label about what kind of content that happens to be located on one host using one Internet protocol.

DNS is being horribly stretched to do things it was never intended to do. If the US Government wanted a "white list" to say "these sites are kid-safe", they should just create a freakin' white list. IE and other browsers do have content filtering systems built in. Why are we not using them?

Even worse idea

[Just Some Guy]

Give tax incentives to businesses that use ICRA labels, and make it a crime to misrepresent a site by placing incorrect ICRA labels in pages.

That is beyond impossible to enforce. What happens when dynamic pages with SQL queries like:

select icra from pagedata where pagename='cramitupmybutt.php';

fail and accidentally pull incorrect data from a corrupted database? Are you seriously willing to criminalize programming errors? If so, who would be responsible in the above case? The page author's? The people who wrote PHP? The people who wrote MySQL/PostgreSQL?

That's just silly, and I can't believe that moderators thought this would be a good idea.

Cracking personal info.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

[unescorted in the seamier neighborhoods of your local downtown ~= unsecorted on the internet]

A child could be physically harmed in the former, while none could come to a child who stumbled onto dirtyxxx.com

Combining some of the java hacks you see (more often) on x-rated sites and adds with browser and OS vulnerabilities, IP vs geographic databases, "passport" info, or other resources, a bad guy could come up with something that might get him street addresses and contents of saved personal correspondence containing all sorts of info about location and movement. This would enable physical attacks on person or property.

Attaching such a tool to a general site might mean all sorts of things. But attaching it to a .kids. site would be clear evidence the bad guy is stalking a minor, which would justify earlier and harsher response by police and prosecutors.

Come On, It's No Big Deal

[serutan]

All this is basically is a self-contained web. So what? Would anybody be getting excited if somebody created a .food domain or a .anime domain containing only internal links? And if the .food guard dogs decided that, say, candy recipes don't qualify as food, so what? There's plenty of candy elsewhere on the WWW.

Good start, but

[SCHecklerX]

I admittedly didn't read the legislation, but hopefully there is something in there about privacy/security?

Tracking kids and advertising to them with popups would not be very cool. Or what about flashing up 'cool' stuff for them to download?

I like the idea, but if it is only half-way, it's no good.

Re:Not constitutional

[SCHecklerX]

Except that kids aren't considered people by our society already.