Should Innocently-Named Porn Sites Be Illegal?

Folic_Acid writes "CNET News.com's Declan McCullagh is reporting that the U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on an amendment to a bill dealing with child abduction that would make it a crime to use an innocent-sounding domain name to drive traffic to a porn website." I can't wait to see the counter-bill that would illegalize naughty, filthy names that lead only to inoccuous content.

Comments

There's more

[GigsVT]

It also attempts to pass a law that would again ban "virtual child porn". This was struck down by the supreme court in the past, I don't know what makes them think it will stick this time. The supreme court really tore into it previously, basically calling it a thoughtcrime law.

Re:There's more

[Anonymous Coward]

Gigs: Thanks for the pictures of your mother and kid sister.

I will soon be releasing a video titled "Virtual Porn: I am raping your kid-sister in front of your mother". Since this is protected free speech, I know you won't object.

I appreciate your help.

Re:There's more

[Anonymous Coward]

The premise of child-porn laws (if I recall correctly), is that the demand for such stuff endangers kids because they're needed to actually produce the stuff. This seems logical -- how can a nude 5-year-old be filmed in some sexual context without it actually happening to the child.

Virtual porn involves no such children.

If you wish to argue that child porn (virtual or filmed) endangers kids because it might entice the sick f*cks who watch the stuff to try it for real, that's different.

There's also the classic "slippery slope" attack against such laws. If "virtual" is banned, how long before simple literature is banned (such as Lolita or Romeo and Juliet). After all, these children don't exist.

Re:There's more

[aoteoroa]

From the article:

The current proposal would ban the creation or possession of "a digital image, computer image, or computer-generated image" that is "indistinguishable" from a real minor.

I support the protection of children, and banning real child porn BUT this proposal which bans pictures of anyone who looks like a minor is ridiculous. Some 16 year old girls look 36, and some 25 year old girls look like they are 15.

The bill is too subjective to be fair, or useful. If someone takes pictures of a minor you can prove based on the date the photo was taken, and the model's birth date that a crime was committed. How does one decide if a model looks too young or not?

Re:There's more

[orangesquid]

Does this mean I can't open up my most recent venture, www.hairypotter.com ?

Re:There's more

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I'll be emailing the porn to your family as well, at least to all family members who are old enough to watch porn. And to their neighbors and coworkers.

Hey, it's protected free speech!

Re:There's more

[GigsVT]

I will soon be releasing a video titled "Virtual Porn: I am raping your kid-sister in front of your mother". Since this is protected free speech, I know you won't

Hehe, that's pretty funny, you should have posted it logged in, but that aside, it's not protected speech.

Under current law, it could be considered a form of libel, since basically you are communicating things that are untrue and damaging about someone. No additional law is needed, the libel laws are enough.

Re:There's more

[Radical Rad]

If you wish to argue that child porn (virtual or filmed) endangers kids because it might entice the sick f*cks who watch the stuff to try it for real, that's different.

That sounds like a valid argument on the surface and I think it is the argument used in some places to ban violent video games but the jury is still out on whether it actually has any influence. Plus some claim that such games actually reduce violence.

Similar arguments have been made that media influence has caused violence and been thrown out of court such as the suit against Judas Priest for alledgedly causing the deaths of two boys in a suicide pact through their lyrics.

If this argument could stand up in court then I think it would have been used long ago to force television producers to remove all violence from their programming and we would be watching The New Leave it to Beaver Show (in Technicolor).

Re:There's more

[tuxedobob]

Somewhat along the same lines, what happens if a 16-year-old makes porn of him/herself and releases it upon turning 18? Clearly the child wasn't being harmed.

Re:There's more

[Trolling4Dollars]

Could wind up passing, given the decidedly conservative nature of the Supreme Court and the current administration now. After all, it's almost a "thoughtcrime" to be opposed to the war right now.

Re:There's more

[Anonymous Coward]

I've often wondered about that myself. My high school girlfriend and I took photos of each other and our friends having sex (oral and vaginal). The pictures were pretty explicit and we were about 15-16 years old at the time. Once I turned 18, I wondered about the "legality" of the photos since we were all consenting and no one in the group was older than 17. I still have the pictures now and look at them from time to time (I'm 35 now). I suppose some people would consider this to be illegal. But the real question is WHY?

Re:There's more

[Trolling4Dollars]

Well... I guess that means that's the end of the line for Anime and Hentai fans... Per Bowie J. Poag anyway.

Moderators note: Funny -1

Re:There's more

[Anonymous Coward]

"Some 16 year old girls look 36, and some 25 year old girls look like they are 15. ....Officer."

Re:There's more

[why-is-it]

I think it is the argument used in some places to ban violent video games but the jury is still out on whether it actually has any influence.

Or not. Despite what some might want to believe, there is a growing body of evidence suggesting that there is a link between exposure to violence and violent behaviour, at least as far as children are concerned. You don't have to take my word for that though, check out the American Psychological Association and see what they have to say about it.

Plus some claim that such games actually reduce violence.

Source? You cannot make claims like that without providing some evidence to back them up.

Re:There's more

[usotsuki]

Hey, a fr1st ps0t that isn't off-topic! *g*

Yeah, it smacks of Maro$haft-ism re: IE. I see why banning sites with innocent names that point to porn pages, but if the Supreme Court says it's unconstitutional, you had better not try to implement it again unless it's through a Constitutional amendment.

-uso.
This legal system is pathological.

Re:There's more

[usotsuki]

Hey, look, I play Mortal Kombat all the time. Do I go out and try to rip off someone's limbs?

Didn't think so.

Get a life, Congress.

-uso.

Re:There's more

[MonkeyDluffy]

Actually, I figure that Bowie will be arrested for his website of excrement wallpapers.

Re:There's more

[Radical Rad]

Source? You cannot make claims like that without providing some evidence to back them up.

I didn't make the claim. I saw it made on TV and it had something to do with observations of siblings hitting each other less when they could take their agression out on each other in console games. I don't know if controlled studies have been done. Probably not because people like you have already made up their minds without objectively testing their hypotheses. This subject has been discussed many times here on Slashdot with arguments and links to information both for and against. Search for it. Have fun.

Dammit

[Loosewire]

Get your laws away from the net

Well...

[addaon]

At least whitehouse.com doesn't have to worry!

Re:Well...

[Copperhead]

Well, the problem with whitehouse.com is that it's false advertizing. The corporate executives are expecting other favors when they enter their credit card information.

Re:Well...

[SN74S181]

Things aren't quite like they were back in, say, 1998 now, are they?

Re:Well...

[Copperhead]

Oh, I don't know.

What out the .porn TLD

[xTMFWahoo]

I read somewhere that they were going to have a .sex or .xxx top level domain to indicate that the site is a porn site...

Re:What out the .porn TLD

[forsetti]

I have often wondered why they do not do this, and then pass a law that all porn sites must be in .porn. This would make it easier to find porn for those who want to, and easier to avoid it for those that don't.

Re:What out the .porn TLD

[AngryPuppy]

I'm not advocating anything, but what about sites that consider themselves artistic rather than raw?

Given, it's easier to draw the line as some points, but what about where the line is gray? Does display of nipples automatically engage the adult high-level requirement?

Re:What out the .porn TLD

[tedDancin]

There is already one out there. It's called .cx

;)

Re:What out the .porn TLD

[ArsonPanda]

Oh damn it, not this tripe again.
The largest problem with this idea, amongst a great great many others, is the subjectivity of the issue. If you can get a half dozen randomly selected people, representing a decent demographic cross section, to agree on where to draw the line, I'll give you 5 bucks.

Does intercourse shots constitue pr0nography? How about just nude shots? Just shots of a topless woman? what if it's on a site discussing self exams for breast cancer? but hey, it's still a nipple right? Sites w/ pics about STDs? sure as heck cant have a penis on the public net. What about a site on the teletubbies, after all, they promote homosexuallity.

None of this even comes close to addressing the unenforcablity of such a law....
On the other hand, it just occured to me that probable Trolls like this parent probably should be illegal.

Re:What out the .porn TLD

[tuxedobob]

I think that generally speaking, it's pretty obvious when you come to a porn site. Porn sites generally have one or more of the following features:

1. Javascript code that activates when you try to leave the page. See number 2.
2. Javascript code that activates when you try to leave the page. See number 1.
3. Less than 2K of text content.
4. No less than 5 animated images, usually ads.
5. One or more of the following words:
   • free
   • trial
   • credit card
   • lesbian
   • xxx
   • adult
6. And finally, naked people on the front page.

Re:What out the .porn TLD

[usotsuki]

On the front page? Not unless you're looking at goatse.cx... *pukes*

-uso.

I hate to be so bloody liberal but...

[GreyWolf3000]

...I think this is ridiculous.

Smut shops have always hung huge lit signs that say "News." This isn't exactly the same as a pr0n store called "toys for kids," bt the same kind of thing.

A businessman has the right to call his business whatever he chooses.

Re:I hate to be so bloody liberal but...

[SeanAhern]

A businessman has the right to call his business whatever he chooses.

Oh really? What if a businessman decided to name his business "Microsoft"? Or what about "Ford Motor Corporation"? Obviously, you can't use the name of another business for the purposes of your own.

Now that we've established the precident of limiting business names, let's go one step further. Should a business be allowed to use false statements to entice people to visit their premises? Can a grocery store advertise "New BMWs for only $10 a piece", with no intention of following through on it? I think most reasonable people would say no.

So now we are at the point where we need to ask whether the name of the business itself can be deemed a "false statement". That's an exercise that I'll leave up to the reader. (Hint: yes)

Re:I hate to be so bloody liberal but...

[DeComposer]

Trademark infringement falls outside of the scope of the argument; the corporate names already exist, therefore they're viable and legal business names. Likewise, false advertising falls under a completely different category of discussion; advertisements are not business names.

If we were to grant the supposition that business names should be somehow limited, the only way to even open the door to such legislation without inviting a first amendment challenge (and it would certainly fail such a challenge, anyway) would be to make it apply universally, not solely to a subset of commerce.

If that were the case, then all business names would have to accurately reflect the main business of a corporation, would it not? Where would that leave corporations with nonsense names such as Qwest, Comcast, KFC, Transmeta, etc.? And what happens if a corporation changes focus? Where would that leave companies like R.J. Reynolds (and who cares what happens to R.J. Reynolds, anyway?), Dow, and General Electric? Would it even be legal to use a family name as a corporate name?

Re:I hate to be so bloody liberal but...

[SeanAhern]

If that were the case, then all business names would have to accurately reflect the main business of a corporation, would it not?

No. The statement that "no business name should mislead customers into thinking it's something else" does not translate into the statement that "all business names must be unambiguously clear". I do not make the claim that all business names must accurately describe the nature of the business. I am making the claim that the business name must not mislead customers in order to gain business. Don't confuse the two.

I am mixing portions of law, you're correct. Trademarks and false advertising do fall under different sections of law.

But the principle is sound.

(I haven't done the research, but I'd be very surprised to discover that business names are not currently restricted. I don't believe that we live in the nation you describe, where anything and everything goes.)

Re:I hate to be so bloody liberal but...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's an exercise that I'll leave up to the reader. (Hint: yes)

Hint: you're an idiot. Otherwise Apple would be in a lot of trouble for not selling fruit.

Re:I hate to be so bloody liberal but...

[SeanAhern]

Don'tcha love ad hominem attacks?

As I mentioned in another post,

The statement that "no business name should mislead customers into thinking it's something else" does not translate into the statement that "all business names must be unambiguously clear". I do not make the claim that all business names must accurately describe the nature of the business. I am making the claim that the business name must not mislead customers in order to gain business. Don't confuse the two.

Read it more closely next time.

Re:I hate to be so bloody liberal but...

[DustMagnet]

Smut shops have always hung huge lit signs that say "News."

That's not intended to deceive. It's there, because "Nudes" would not be very tasteful and the city (usually) will not allow that. In some sense it's a well-known code, a euphemism, to say "News". If the sign said, "Beer" or worse "Candy", that would be a better analogy.

Before you attack me, I think any such law would be ruled too vague by the courts.

Re:I hate to be so bloody liberal but...

[KITT_KATT!*]

Really? How strange. Porn shops in Australia have signs like 'Adult entertainment' or 'XXXX' or 'Sex toys'. If a shop has a sign saying 'News', it probably sells newspapers and magazines.

Re:I hate to be so bloody liberal but...

[GreyWolf3000]

Chossing a name is not entirely a matter for advertising. It often is, and often is not.

Furthurmore, suppose we *do* allow companies to call themselves whaqtever we want, and we get a grocery store who's name advertises cheap sports cars. What do you think will happen if we allow this? Do you think the store will last five seconds in business that way? Of course not! You're saying "you can't call your business something misleading," but I think that calling your business something misleading equals bankrupcy. Do you think I could get any kind of investment capital for an rp and coming clothes store called "Video Rentals for 99 cents!!!"?

Of course, things are different in this case, as people don't care what company they get their pr0n from, but your akalogy is moot.

While I think this is a lame practice and people shouldn't do it, I respect the right of citizens to call their businessees whatever they please.

I'm not even going to go in to your first point about trademark infringement or your last comment. Trademarks are irrelevant here (you can't use logic like "we need a, hence we need b" unless b is a subset of a, and in this case b is an extension of a. And your last comment was extremely patronizing. I understand your position full well and I don't need to be led through the basics of political argument like a child (or, more specifically, a student).

Re:I hate to be so bloody liberal but...

[Danse]

How does misleading a customer gain them business? Presumably someone who is mislead would not become a customer.

Re:I hate to be so bloody liberal but...

[acvh]

You've never walked down 5th Avenue in NYC, have you? Many stores named "Going Out Of Business" or "Lost Our Lease"; they aren't looking for repeat customers. They only want to fleece tourists.

Re:I hate to be so bloody liberal but...

[Danse]

Ok, I've never been to NY, but it sounds pretty much like the furniture stores here in town that have going out of business sales once a year or so. I guess I figured that people catch on to that sort of thing.

Re:I hate to be so bloody liberal but...

[AngryPuppy]

The exterior of a real world business can usually indicate the kind of business it is, so that kind of ambiguity in the name is not an issue when walking down the street. Adult businesses on the street aren't trying to trick you into stepping in by pretending to be something else. If they did, I'm sure they would be under legal scrutiny the first time a minor walked into the establishment. I think that Internet business should have the clarity in naming because in the current internet environment, you don't know what you are walking into (in the more ambiguous cases, anyway) until you are basically "in the shop".

Re:I hate to be so bloody liberal but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I do not believe the argument is, all business names should depict the type of business or XXX sites need to use names that separate them from other businesses. I believe that the argument is that XXX sites shouldn't be able to use business names that could reasonably cause people to form a false opinion of the type of business they are. Should a site that deals with sex be able to use the domain name www.kidsstuff.com. How about one called familytrips.com. I do not believe that company names need to depict the type of business but those that do use descriptive names should be held accountable for the names they use. I do not know if legislation is the way to go but a problem does exist. The fact is that they are not a "normal" business. Many people find that type material repulsive and have no interest in viewing or having their families view such material.

inoccuous content

[commonchaos]

... illegalize naughty, filthy names that lead only to inoccuous content ...

There was a "bird watching" site with the domain name "nice-tits.org" (its down now). It wasn't really a bird watching site, but funny none-the-less.

Re:inoccuous content

[Anonymous Coward]

...illegalize naughty, filthy names that lead only to inoccuous content...

There was a "bird watching" site with the domain name "nice-tits.org" (its down now). It wasn't really a bird watching site, but funny none-the-less.

Depending where you get your slang from, "bird watching" could indeed have been the subject of nice-tits.org

Re:inoccuous content

[unitron]

Bird watching could be English slang for girl watching and tit is the name of an actual bird, of the kind with wings, feathers, and the ability to fly, so what is or isn't an innocent sounding name or what is or isn't a naughty sounding name is even more subjective a judgement than what is or is not pornography or obscenity or whatever term is used for whatever it is to which some politician thinks you need to be denied access or from which they think you need to be protected.

In other, fewer, words, it's hopelessly unworkable. Which is why you can be sure that a politician is behind it.

The reason vendors _don't_ want this...

[ConceptJunkie]

...is because they apparently believe they derive a lot of new business by tricking people into their sites through innocent-sounding names, typosquatting and other devious tricks. Look at porn spam, which is now starting to avoid all the keywords that filters would use to pick them out. This kind of predatory marketing is particularly odious because it affects people (like me) who would never willing go to these sites and has no way of discriminating against children, whom even the most hard-core porn advocates generally agree should not be exposed. At this time, I wouldn't even feel comfortable giving my kids an e-mail account unless I personally previewed everything that came in. That's disgusting and pathetic. If this happened with physical mail, it would be stopped immediately by the Post Office and FBI.

If I had a brick-and-mortar store called "Freddie's Fuzzie Kitties" and people walked in to find a hardcore porn store, it would be closed in 10 minutes, and rightly so.

Why is the Internet treated so different from the physical world? I realize that most of this garbage comes from overseas, which makes enforcement difficult, but it's also clear no effort is being made to address the problem.

Re:The reason vendors _don't_ want this...

[peewhitlle]

If I had a brick-and-mortar store called "Freddie's Fuzzie Kitties" and people walked in to find a hardcore porn store, it would be closed in 10 minutes, and rightly so.

Unless the store did in fact sell "Fuzzie Kitties". The exact meaning thereof is left as an exercise for the reader...

More to the point though, most brick-and-mortar porn shops do have fairly innocuous names. Usually they're billed as some sort of video store and have only a small sign stating "Adult Novelties" near the door. The same often goes for strip... sorry, Gentlemen's Clubs. Once on a business trip I had a colleague who stopped into "The Living Room" thinking it was a household furnishings store. She was a bit surprised by what was inside.

I don't necessarily agree with all of this. I'm just pointing out that the real world is not always clearly labeled.

Re:The reason vendors _don't_ want this...

[L-Train8]

I remember going to the site www.gamefaq.com to get a walkthrough for a videogame. Imagine my surprise when I realized that the site I was really looking for was www.gamefaqs.com, and the former was a porn site with incredibly annoying and unstoppable pop-ups of more porn sites. (gamefaqs has since obtained the typo domain, so it is not an issue anymore).

Although, to use Frank Zappa's words, this bill seems to be trying to cure dandruff with decapitation, I can understand the frustration that leads to this sort of legislation.

Re:The reason vendors _don't_ want this...

[Dread_ed]

In Houston we had a store located on a major commercial street (Westheimer) that was called "Cindy's Toy Box."

Sounds innocent enough, but when you walked inside there were a large assortment of Cindy's (SEX) toys prominently arrayed for all to see. You see, the store was a shop that sold sex accesories, paraphenalia, and such.

Surprisingly, the sign stayed the same for almost 6 months (maybe a little longer! Can't exactly remember). Eventually it was changed to reflect the type of store it is more accurately.

Re:The reason vendors _don't_ want this...

[Com2Kid]

• Unless the store did in fact sell "Fuzzie Kitties". The exact meaning thereof is left as an exercise for the reader...

Funniest

Comment

Ever

still laughing over it, LOL!

Re:The reason vendors _don't_ want this...

[usotsuki]

*groan* Ever visit "googld.com" ?

-uso.
Yeah, there is a googld.com.

Re:The reason vendors _don't_ want this...

[ConceptJunkie]

No, but I can imagine. I think a more likely typo would be googlr.com or googlw.com.

[OT] What is it with the US legislative system?

[tdelaney]

Every time I read about crappy US laws it's because it's some idiocy attached to an existing bill, or a rider to something ... because it couldn't get passed on its own.

Why the hell is this allowed? Why should things that have nothing to do with the original bill be included in a vote to pass it into law? And why are laws often voted on without representatives even reading the bill?

It is completely ridiculous.

Here in Australia *every* proposed piece of legislation must be considered and debated *on its own* and in its entirety. Every proposed piece of legislation must receive *three* full readings out loud *in parliament* before it can be voted on and passed through to the upper house. Any amendments must go through the same process. If the senate sends it back (with or without proposed amendments) it must go through the same process before it can be passed back to the senate.

It seems to work for us. We sure get a lot fewer crappy laws passed into legislation. Sure - a government with a majority in both houses can get legislation (crappy or otherwise) passed quickly, but I can't remember the last time an Australian government held a majority in both houses ... so at the very least deals have to be made with members of the senate.

Re:[OT] What is it with the US legislative system?

[Darkstorm]

Well, one of the items some States in the US has for it's governors is a line item veto. So basicly the governor can sign off on the main portion and veto the extra crap. This was talked about, at one time, for the president to stop this paticular problem...but has not happend. If it did then it would be pointless to add the extras because they would be dropped more than accepted.

Of course this isn't going to happen any time soon.

Re:[OT] What is it with the US legislative system?

[cgenman]

Every proposed piece of legislation must receive *three* full readings out loud *in parliament* before it can be voted on and passed through to the upper house.

Good luck finding 3 US congressmen who can read.

Re:[OT] What is it with the US legislative system?

[cgenman]

This was talked about, at one time, for the president to stop this paticular problem...but has not happend. If it did then it would be pointless to add the extras because they would be dropped more than accepted.

The line item veto was enacted by congress (amazingly) in 1996, and was used by clinton 82 times on 11 bills to save 2 billion dollars over the course of the year before it was declared unconstitutional. More info here, or through your friendly google affiliate.

Re:[OT] What is it with the US legislative system?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in Australia *every* proposed piece of legislation must be considered and debated *on its own* and in its entirety. Every proposed piece of legislation must receive *three* full readings out loud *in parliament* before it can be voted on and passed through to the upper house. Any amendments must go through the same process. If the senate sends it back (with or without proposed amendments) it must go through the same process before it can be passed back to the senate.

You forgot to mention the part where it has to meet with the approval of the Governor General. Careful there, you don't want him to disolve the government on you.

Re:[OT] What is it with the US legislative system?

[tdelaney]

Well, technically you only need one, so long as the congressmen are capable of listening ... :)

Re:[OT] What is it with the US legislative system?

[jhunsake]

I'm sure you were kidding, but it's comments like this makes the general public at large ignore people like you. So don't complain later when things don't go your way.

Re:[OT] What is it with the US legislative system?

[unitron]

Q. Why can't congressmen read?

A. Because they've always got that finger up in the air to see which way the wind is blowing.

Re:[OT] What is it with the US legislative system?

[cgenman]

Sorry, when congress has to delay bills because it cannot convince a quorum to show up, and when legislation sneaks through because nobody significant bothered to read the bill, one must question the dedication of congress to satisfying their mandate. Perhaps I should rephrase the statement as, "good luck finding 3 congressmen with enough time to read the bill, especially when they must raise one thousand dollars per day every day for the length of their term to have enough funds to be re-elected"

Of course I'll complain when things don't go my way... how else can one be heard in this democracy? Perhaps I will be ignored as fringe because I have long hair, an alternative lifestyle, and a tiny car, but it would be disingenuous for anyone to cloak themselves in the clothing of the mainstream in order to sway opinion on the general public's beliefs.

Re:[OT] What is it with the US legislative system?

[Verteiron]

Why the hell is this allowed?

Because it isn't explicitly forbidden. And it's hard to make another law to stop it. Even if you could get it passed, how would you word something like that?

And while your example of the Australian senate procedures sounds pretty good, I question the effectiveness... after all, didn't Australia recently pass a law that tried to outlaw world-wide content that Australia found unacceptable?

Re:[OT] What is it with the US legislative system?

[ShdwStkr]

Amen brother. How I _wish_ we had ( or still had, apparently ) something like this. I do live in the US, and I'm always annoyed at the riders that get slapped on otherwise good bills. Garrr...

-SS

Re:[OT] What is it with the US legislative system?

[fudgefactor7]

"Why the hell is this allowed? Why should things that have nothing to do with the original bill be included in a vote to pass it into law? And why are laws often voted on without representatives even reading the bill?"

YES! YES! A THOUSAND TIMES YES! I have been saying that same damn thing for over 2 years now, I've written about it, I've suggested legislation to Congress, The Pres, and anyone else who would listen, and you know what? It fails. Why? Porkbarrel politics. See that's where these people make their mark, they know that their assnine ideas fall flat on their own so they tack it onto a bill that has good stuff in it that has to pass. Like putting a raise for Congress in a bill giving lawmakers greater powers to do good... It's sad, really. I'd have to say, Austrailia has their act together on this one.

Re:[OT] What is it with the US legislative system?

[fudgefactor7]

"Well, one of the items some States in the US has for it's governors is a line item veto. So basicly the governor can sign off on the main portion and veto the extra crap. This was talked about, at one time, for the president to stop this paticular problem...but has not happend."

Line Item Veto at the Presidential level was declared Unconstitutional, so it will never happen.

Re:[OT] What is it with the US legislative system?

[realdpk]

Ah yes. Perhaps we should just vote for better congressmen. What's that you say? They're all like this? Oh well.

Re:[OT] What is it with the US legislative system?

[ChristTrekker]

Line-item veto is extremely dangerous. You're letting one man essentially write legislation, but cutting bits and pieces out of a bill.

A much better system, IMO, would be a law (or amendment perhaps, if we're talking about the US) that would limit riders on bills to being germane to the topic of the bill and within its original scope. Of course, the fact that 535 members of Congress don't do this on their own is proof of how morally and ethically bankrupt they (at least a majority of them) are.

Re:[OT] What is it with the US legislative system?

[jhunsake]

It's a hell of a lot harder to change things from the outside than it is from the inside.

Simple answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple answer:

No, just widely known as

The Sites That Suck (You)

Freedom Of speech modafackaz!

[Anonymous Coward]

Freedom Of speech modafackaz!

Disgusting little fascist pigs of cencorship, we're not looking for you, we've already found you.

Well ok, porn sites suck anyway, but that's not a reason to shut up whoever your fascistic mind wants.

I prefer my porn clean and my porn web dirs with no html

What determines what is innocently named?

[Hugonz]

Should doggie-style.com be a pet hairdressing shop portal or a site about people's favorite position?

Re:What determines what is innocently named?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's stopping it being both?

EXACTLY -np-

[Anonymous Coward]

awersewr1234

Strangely, I don't find this a problem

[BranMan]

Provided that the ammendment is very specifically worded to include tests such other laws have - like would a "reasonable, average person expect to find pronography at a sight with this name" - then I'd have no problem with it.

I can see a really strong argument that such as misleading site name is fraud in a sense - deliberately taking someone somewhere they don't want to go. How this is supposed to make such as site more profitable is beyond me. Kind of like how bait-and-switch is illegal for stores, bait-and-switch in website names can arguably be made illegal as well.

Re:Strangely, I don't find this a problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Provided that the ammendment is very specifically worded to include tests such other laws have - like would a "reasonable, average person expect to find pronography at a sight with this name" - then I'd have no problem with it.

So you'd have no trouble taking penthouse.com down, because the average person would expect to find information on apartments there?

What about whitehouse.com - surely the average person wouldn't expect to find a porn site there?

Re:Strangely, I don't find this a problem

[ubernostrum]

My site's URL is "ubernostrum.dyndns.org"; I am neither an organization nor is my actual name "ubernostrum"; am I committing fraud by misleading people who are really looking for information on ubernostrum?

Is Geocities committing fraud? I was looking for information on geologically-interesting cities, and they misled me -- here it's actually a place where you can get a free website.

Frankly, the domain name system isn't perfect; domain names get assigned to things that have nothing to do with the actual name at times. That doesn't mean we need a law making such practices fraud; the repercussions of that, as I hope you can see, would be ludicrous. What we do need is for people to get a clue when it comes to using the Internet; if a person driving down the highway displayed the same level of ignorance about cars and driving as the average Web user displays about computers and the Internet, people would be dying in horrific accidents by the millions. Yet in the case of the Internet, folks just seem to shrug and say "well, computers are hard", or call for ridiculously stupid laws to protect them from their own stupidity, and that's the dangerous fraud being perpetrated.

It may be something to concern...

[Yuan-Lung]

I remember a few years back, I mistakenly typed www.gamefaq.com for www.gamefaqs.com. I ended up looking at a deviant porn site that I sure as hell wouldn't want my kids to be looking at. When gamefaqs.com took over that domain, I was somewhat relieved.

I do believe there has to be some degree of control for things like this, but I don't trust the bureaucrats to get it right either.

It's not easy to just arbitarily decide which names are "innocent sounding" and thus can't be used for a porn site and which aren't, if it's even possible. IMHO, the control should be something that we can draw a clear and definitive distinction, such as moving all porn sites to a seperate first level domain.

Re:It may be something to concern...

[Dread_ed]

I remember one time I clicked on a link to an innocnet looking article in a Linux friendly news site.

I was redirected to a domain called "goat.se" or something or other.

After replcing my eyeballs I have taken up a crusade to stop this type of activity on the net. No one should have to bathe in holy water and take antipsychotic drugs just because they want to be well informed about the news.

Re:It may be something to concern...

[Larry_Dillon]

If you let your kids use the Internet unsupervised, the fault is yours. Because the Internet is international and national values as to what is appropriate for children vary, schemes like this are doomed to failure.

I'm not trying to call the author a bad parrent, but the Internet is not a baby-sitter....

It's like letting your kid run wild in the largest bookstore on the planet, knowing full well that innapropriate material is available.

That said, I'd welcome a .kids TLD and browser settings that lock them into it. That WAY beats censoring the Internet for everyone.

Re:It may be something to concern...

[technos]

...I have taken up a crusade to stop this type of activity on the net. No one should have to bathe in holy water and take antipsychotic drugs just because they want to be well informed about the news...

There's a group at Carnegie Mellon working on something to kill the trolls who post disturbing links like that goat.se thing. Basically it's a collaborative filter, where if you see something truly unfit for a set of normal eyeballs you flag it and after a certain number of flags by different users, the filter adds it to the global kill list on all clients. Kills redirects, obfuscated URLs, the whole shebang

Right now they have a working plug-in for IE5+ and mostly working for recent Mozilla builds, plus a stand alone client for Win32 and Linux that basically just updates the host file, but their kill list is pretty short. You can download pre-built versions from one of theie developers here.

Re:It may be something to concern...

[vreiner]

Fascinating... I've used a product called Spamnet from Cloudmark, which uses the same methodology but for spam. So, being interested in such an addin I fell for the trick and went to tubgirl site, which I wouldn't recommend for anyone who has a weak stomach. Suffice to say, there is a girl and a tub, and it's disgusting to say the least. Thanks to technos for your outrageous demonstration of not-truly-deceptive site naming.

I am a proponent of free speech, and I tend to agree with the overall view that it would be nice if something could be done to control the situation without preventing anyone from excercising their free speech rights. I also agree unfortunately that there is no porposed solution that I've seen that is at all workable.

Of course, if everybody played nice in the sandbox, the concept of a .xxx or .sex TLD would work fine. I still think that "responsible" pr0n companies could voluntarily use such a TLD and gain some form of respectability or credibility from doing so.

new .porn

[Darkstorm]

So why don't they just have a .porn created and force porn sites to use that. Ok, not an idea that will make everyone happy, but at least you would know where your going if you use it.

Just a thought.

Re:new .porn

[GigsVT]

What about art? What about stuff like Cinemax movies that at least try to have a plot mixed in with the soft core fake porn? Where's the line? Is this an International domain? If so, then who does enforcement? What if .cx decides they don't want to lose the goatse revenue stream and decides not to participate? Are we going to send in the military to force them to not host porn?

Re:new .porn

[Anonymous Coward]

The idea is that .porn domains are self-regulated. The porn merchants don't want people uninterested in porn going to their site and wasting bandwidth. They don't want kids going and using fake cc numbers to get into their sites.

Yes, the line to be drawn between porn and non-porn is very fuzzy, but this would reduce the blatant hardcore from the .com world, which is at least a step in the right direction.

What's an innocent name?

[redelm]

... certainly not The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Av, Wash DC. For all I know, there is some wholesome local brothel using that name :)

More to the point, why criminalise something? Next they'll criminalise other information they find undesirable. To stop it, all the USgovt need do is register some trademarks and defend them. Furthermore, I believe the US & states attorneys can sue for trademark infringement even without the involvement of the trademark owner [consumer protection].

Re:What's an innocent name?

[thopkins]

During the Clinton presidency I believe 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. was actually used as a brothel.

This is where you lose us.

[Fished]

Issues like this are where the rabid "free speech at any price" crowd lose the rest of the country.

The bottom line is that there are many porn sites out there that *deliberately* seek to attract people who were not seeking porn. The most notable example, of course, is "whitehouse.com". Ultimately, this is a truth in advertising issue: if I open a can that says "peanuts", it should contain peanuts. If I order a "real, fully functional sailboat" it shouldn't be six inches high. And, in the world of information, if I buy a magazine entitled "Home Wine Making", it should contain information on wine making. Imagine if it were a tract against drinking from some benighted fundamentalists? You'd be pissed, wouldn't you? You'd want your money back, wouldn't you?

The problem, of course, with domain-name-spamming, is that once I've given you my eyeballs, I can't take them back. There is no way for me to demand a refund. Furthermore, these sites are often deliberately deceptive. "Whitehouse.com" was not founded at that address because he thought it would be a good way to found his business: it was founded because he wanted to trick people who would otherwise not want to view his warez into viewing them. This is false and deceptive, and is nowhere near legitimate free speech. Why don't you focus your energy on something that matters?

(And, please, spare me the slippery slope conspiracy theories.)

Re:This is where you lose us.

[Anonymous Coward]

And, in the world of information, if I buy a magazine entitled "Home Wine Making", it should contain information on wine making. Imagine if it were a tract against drinking from some benighted fundamentalists? You'd be pissed, wouldn't you? You'd want your money back, wouldn't you?

Yes, because I've bought something not fit for the purpose.

The problem, of course, with domain-name-spamming, is that once I've given you my eyeballs, I can't take them back. There is no way for me to demand a refund.

That's because you haven't spent anything. The contract in the magazine case is "here is some money for a magazine about wine making". Clearly, the shop-keeper failed to uphold his end of the bargain.

In the website case, there is no consideration given by you. It's essentially "please show me the website at this address. Piss and moan all you like about not liking what you get, but you haven't given anything, so tough titties.

Sheesh. And you call others rabid?

Re:This is where you lose us.

[Spudley]

"Whitehouse.com" was not founded at that address because he thought it would be a good way to found his business: it was founded because he wanted to trick people who would otherwise not want to view his warez into viewing them

Firstly, I completely agree with your position - the sort of domain spamming under discussion is sick, illegitimate and inexcusable. There are dozens, if not hundreds of examples, and they soil and degrade the internet as a whole.

However, with specific regard to Whitehouse.com, you are obviously not aware that Whitehouse has been a soft-core print magazine since many many years before they registered the domain name. It might not have quite the same circulation as Hustler and Playboy, but it's a recognised magazine brand name, which means that ironically for your argument, you picked the one site that probably does have a legitimate argument for it's domain name.

That doesn't lessen the validity of your argument as a whole, but you may want to pick a different example. :-)

(I don't know what the original logic was for the name of the magazine - it probably was chosen in the first instance with the name of a certain building in mind, but as a phrase, "white house" is probably more generic even than "windows" so I don't think anyone can complain)

Re:This is where you lose us.

[Telastyn]

That's why the US has specific false advertising laws...

Why should there be a specific internet law for something that's already illegal? Why should there be a specific porn law for something that's already illegal?

Re:This is where you lose us.

[Anonymous Coward]

Or if you walk into a "Crisis Pregnancy Center", you should expect info on pregnancies, not rabid anti-abortionists that make you watch "Silent Scream"

Re:This is where you lose us.

[sootman]

This is false and deceptive, and is nowhere near legitimate free speech.

The whole point of the 1st amendment is to protect speech others may not find 'legitimate'. Repeat after me: popular speech doesn't need to be protected! And flase and deceptive are hardly relevant here since, as another poster pointed out, you don't pay *anything* to stumble onto a site. OK, 5 seconds of your life, then you learn to use a search engine and not just type 'common-word-or-brand' into the location bar because it's not 1996 anymore.

Yes, whitehouse.com might surprise a few people but, to be honest, it sticks to what the founders of the Internet had in mind--anyone paying attention would know that the house the President lives in should be a .gov, not a .com!

Besides, rabid nutjobs like ESR, the ACLU, and the NRA are needed to maintain balance. Rabid nutjobs pull hard enough that, even when you ignore half of what they say, you're still better off for having had them around, than just letting everything you hold near and dear be torn away by those in positions of power.

Should deception be illegal?

[MacAndrew]

I'm very skeptical of this sort of thing, and believe this particular effort should be discarded as unenforceable subjective paternalistic hogwash. Much as I despise filters, they and other forms of self-help are preferable to government fumbling. Imagine trying to determine the typographical penumbra of legit URL's. (I just hit googl and was irritated to hit a bogus site, period.) Most of us couldn't do a good job of it and I'm sure the government can't.

However, some kinds of speech are illegal, such as false or deceptive advertising. So are trademark violation and tarnishment. The problem here is the injury -- wasted time and perhaps some psychological insult -- is trivial. I'm happier with whitehouse.com as a porn site than as a very tricky imitation of the real thing.

If they're worried about kids as opposed to trying for those family values votes, their should be restrictions on the home page content and age verification requirements. It is already considered consistent with the 1st Amendment to restrict access by minors to certain materials, and the adult site operators should be held to it. It might also prevent someone from losing their job over a typo....

Re:Should deception be illegal?

[Fished]

I often see this attitude from techies ... you have to understand that the law has no problem dealing with subjective realities and inductive reasoning. In fact, the law is founded on both. Very often, the law has to make very subjective judgments regarding intent, etc. and that's OK.

And, yes, deception *should* be illegal. In fact, it's always been illegal in many contexts -- they call them "cons". Why shouldn't it be illegal here?

Re:Should deception be illegal?

[Narchie Troll]

Perhaps because it doesn't injure you or cause you to lose property to see naughty pictures?

Re:Should deception be illegal?

[MacAndrew]

> I often see this attitude from techies ... you have to understand...

LOL, you may have missed a turn -- this attitude is coming from a tech-oriented lawyer, quite aware of the law's limitations in making subjective calls, and the less often it is forced to do so the better. The slippery slope's fine, but don't hop out there if you don't have to.

The post title was rhetorical. That's why I pointed to existing law of fraud etc. as appropriate and adequate.

Re:Should deception be illegal?

[ubernostrum]

Yet Nike went to court and won a right to lie . . . seems the law has no problem contradicting itself, either.

Re:Should deception be illegal?

[fmaxwell]

Perhaps because it doesn't injure you or cause you to lose property to see naughty pictures?

Many sexual images, especially those portraying such deviant practices such as coprophagia, extreme S&M, mutilation, etc., could psychologically scar a child or deeply upset and offend many adults with more delicate sensibilities than yours or mine. The courts have long recognized mental anguish as a form of injury.

Re:Should deception be illegal?

[FroMan]

You were one of the few to vote spam is never wrong a couple weeks ago on the slashdot poll?

They've used my bandwidth decieving me to go to their site. Just as spammers decieve me into thinking their mail is valid.

I'm not all for this law, though I am in no way supportive of porn. One would wish folks hawking their wares would come out and say what they are selling instead of beating around the bush. Reminds me of pyramid marketers on the phone or advertising in college career services catalogs.

Re:Should deception be illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

re: sig -- Token conservative my ass. Slashdot is swarming with conservatives.

Re:Should deception be illegal?

[FroMan]

New around here? :-P Or just so liberal even France seems conservative to you?

Re:Should deception be illegal?

[valkraider]

could psychologically scar a child or deeply upset and offend many adults with more delicate sensibilities than yours or mine

Then do us all a favor, and keep those children and delicate adults inside and out of my world. Because I don't know about you, but there are just too many things even in EVERYDAY LIFE that can cause emotional scars for me to care about the fragile ones. Hell, Killing Iraqi's for sport causes ME mental anguish - who do I sue? It is a fact: there are things in this world that will offend you. Get over it, learn to close your eyes or walk-away, and stop passing laws that so that idiots can feel "safe". Well, having said that - I'll just take Karma -1, for the block Bob...

Re:Should deception be illegal?

[fmaxwell]

Then do us all a favor, and keep those children and delicate adults inside and out of my world.

Do yourself a favor and get the psychological counseling you need. If you think that seeing someone eating shit or butterfly-splitting their penis is something that only the most delicate of children and adults would be upset by, then you need help.

Re:Should deception be illegal?

[Com2Kid]

• Do yourself a favor and get the psychological counseling you need. If you think that seeing someone eating shit or butterfly-splitting their penis is something that only the most delicate of children and adults would be upset by, then you need help.

I'm sorry, but this is the net;

and, my fellow /.'er, everything is on the net.

And everybody KNOWS everything is on the net. If part of "everything" is something that they cannot imagine, then so be it, that does not stop the data from being there.

Quite frankly I have long been looking for anything I am not desensitized to. (I find the predator archives to be rather humorous. *WARNING* Insanly explicit shit */WARNING* )

Re:Should deception be illegal?

[valkraider]

would be upset

That completely missed my point. I agree that many things can be upsetting. I find many things upsetting - like Christianity - that millions of people appreciate. That is perfectly normal, and a part of life. My response was to the poster that said we need to protect our children and delicate adults from content that will emotionally scar them. That is different than being upset, or grossed out, or even repulsed. I personally belive that LIFE is emotionally scarring, and that is what makes us all unique - scarring makes our personality what it is. If you can't deal with the reality that bad kaka happens in this world, you will have a very tough time. Don't hide the reality from the fragile people, because it is impossible to hide it forever. Instead, let people learn how to turn away, how to cope when they can't turn away, and maybe understand what it is that makes them want to turn away. Why do people slow and look at car accidents? Everyone knows it is bad. But they also know that at least in that instance they were not the victims of the badness, and therefore are curious in theirt most morbid way. Maybe the morbid curiosity is just a way of getting exposure to things that eventually we will all have to encounter. Much like pets dying teaching kids about life and death. It is easier to learn in small steps, then all of a sudden your world comes tumbling down in one fell swoop. Or to put a more current context, take 9/11. We had been protected and sheltered for so long that 9/11 was a vast quagmire of horror. But if anything of that scale happens again, I imagine it will be a little easier to deal with deep down at a basic level. Because we know what to expect from ourselves now, in the face of serious adversity. Not directly fo course, but in an emotional sense. I had dealt with life and death enough as a child on a farm, that by the time I was 16 and lost a friend - I could deal with it. Some kids my age didn't. Life is all about learning how to best deal with the bad things - so that we can more readilly enjoy all the good things that surround us. I don't want to spend my time worrying about bad things - but instead enjoy the beauty life has to offer.

Why is porn so special?

[Muggins the Mad]

I'm having trouble understanding why there seem to be seperate laws and exceptions being proposed for porn.

I don't find porn sites particularly offensive. What I do find offensive is landing on religious sites using deceptive names. Or domain squatters. Especially domain squatters.

Why the focus on porn? Why are porn merchants any different from other merchants? I find many cosmetic company pages pretty darn nasty. Church pages... don't get me started...

What *should* one expect to find at www.cats.com ? Why is that ok and www.pussy.com not ?

- MugginsM

Re:Why is porn so special?

[Anonymous Coward]

For some examples of deceptive names, the Scientology cult runs the Cult Awareness Network, some pro-life groups run deceptive "family planning" sites...

Re:Why is porn so special?

[SeanAhern]

(This may be a bit off-topic, but...)

I find it humorous that someone considers a pro-life web site, one that presumably talks about being open to new life, as one that is not about family planning. That's precisely what planning a family is all about.

What twisted definitions we've wrapped ourselves with...

Re:Why is porn so special?

[Anonymous Coward]

You sound like a good guy, but I'm confused by what you mean. I'm guessing that you don't know that pro-life people are also behind the abstinence until marriage campaign and they've removed talk about birth control from many schools.

I guess you could call that supporting family planning, if you plan to have a very large family when you get married. Personally, I think we all want to have as few abortions as possible, the real debate should be about how to get there. I support birth control. They support laws against abortion.

P.S. I'm sorry I posted this to a porn story.

Re:Why is porn so special?

[octalgirl]

I don't think it's porn so much, as it is porn targeted to attract kids. I remember when whitehouse.com was truely a parody site only, now it really is just porn.

In the early internet days, (I work in schools) I was in a lab randomly checking for where kids have been. I would open the .Dat file from netscape and search for key words like sex, etc. When I got a hit I would trace it back to the web site. So on this day I got a hit, but when I traced it back it was a site for cheat codes. No big deal I thought. The codes and names of games all looked legit to me. I couldn't figure out why I got a hit. It was a very long page, and finally, at the very bottom, there was very graphic porn add. Of course I clicked it, and it turned into one of those self-replicating pages. They were all extreme hard core stuff. So many pages I finally had to hit the off button. To me, it was clearly targeted to get kids, to get them interested so some perv can get them to do things, and just like the cigarette companies, building future customers. Yeah, I think stuff like that should be against the law. But since I can no longer trust our congress to pass a law that would make sense, they have proven over and over that they are technically illiterate for the most part, I would opt for some other solution - but I don't know what.

Re:Why is porn so special?

[KITT_KATT!*]

I don't see too many pro-life people protesting against the death penalty. The US incarcerates and executes more people than just about any other country. Perhaps that's where pro-lifers should focus their efforts rather than persecuting women?

Re:Why is porn so special?

[tuxedobob]

No, not really. Why try to save the lives of 683 criminals when you can try to save 40 million unborn children?

And before you mention the fact that it's even slightly possible that perhaps one of those put to death via capital punishment is innocent, let me remind you you're comparing them to 40 million unborn children. Aren't the children innocent?

Re:Why is porn so special?

[dacetone]

What I never could understand is why so many anti-abortion folks are also anti-welfare. How do they propose that all of these unwanted children eat? Taking the welfare-to-work stance (working 70 hours a week at a minimum-wage job and still not being able to pay the bills), or the Libertarian stance (make the church/your extended family feed you), kids still need to eat.

Re:Why is porn so special?

[Dread_ed]

I would have rated you +1 funny if I had the points.

The reason that porn is so special is that it is a controlled visual stimulus. In other words, you have to be a certain age to buy it in the USA. Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler, etc. cannot be purchased at the corner store by those under the age of 18/21 depending.

In other countries this may not be so. I mean, maybe elementary children in Europe can buy hardcore-fisting-scat mags at the school store. However, in the USA we have laws about this type of material and THAT is the difference between porn merchants and regular merchants.

As for religious sites: have a sense of humor! Most of the offensive religious sites can be downright hilarious if you read them.

Re:Why is porn so special?

[saifatlast]

This thing about finding pr0n sites unoffensive is really an interesting topic, and in a way, is really what this whole issue boils down to. Because some people find such sites offensive, they think that this is a widespread belief (and I'm not neccessarily saying that it isn't). So then, this begs the question, who gets to set the standards for the rest of the world, those who are easily offended or those who aren't?

Re:Why is porn so special?

[Planesdragon]

I find it humorous that someone considers a pro-life web site, one that presumably talks about being open to new life, as one that is not about family planning. That's precisely what planning a family is all about.

An anti-abortion political website's relation to "family planning"--that being, the parents having control of when they do or do not have children--is equivalent to the relation of a cracker web site and Computer Security.

What twisted definitions we've wrapped ourselves with...

I agree. "Family Planning" isn't that onerous, but "pro-choice" and "pro-life" are just down-right rediculous.

Re:Why is porn so special?

[SeanAhern]

An anti-abortion political website's relation to "family planning"--that being, the parents having control of when they do or do not have children--is equivalent to the relation of a cracker web site and Computer Security.

I'm gonna have to disagree here.

I'm going to use the word "anti-abortion", though that's not quite an accurate description of what I mean.

The anti-abortion viewpoint is that killing a fetus should not be one of the legal ways of choosing when to have children. That falls squarely into the realm of "family planning". The fact that an anti-abortion site discusses the consequences of the decision to abort doesn't mean that it's not about family planning. In fact, it's primarily about that subject. It's just a second-order effect.

A good anti-abortion site would also be a pro-life one, and also get into the first-order subject of family planning. The distinction is that anti-abortion is one topic, while pro-life is many. Pro-life also encompasses discussion about capital punishment, natural family planning (both disciplines), euthanasia, etc. It would also get into the international politics of forced sterilization and such by governments and other organizations. It would tie itself intimitely with human rights. In short, it should encompass all the subjects that being "pro" about "life" entails.

(I'd like to delve into this deeper in this post, but as Twirlip observed about himself, I too am getting tired.)

Re:Why is porn so special?

[usotsuki]

I am anti-abortion and I'm just fine and ducky with welfare. I was on it for a couple years. If you can't afford to live, go on welfare; if you can't afford to raise a child, give it up for adoption! Killing an innocent *human being* is not the answer (and IMHO anything with a human genome is a human being).

-uso.

Re:Why is porn so special?

[chrisseaton]

"Of course I clicked it"

What were you expecting on the other end of a porn add?

Whoa!

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't wait to see the counter-bill that would illegalize naughty, filthy names that lead only to inoccuous content

...I guess that eliminates goatse.cx - sigh...

Great idea, but underly broad

[cgenman]

For example, any site that registers slash.com, slashdo.org, lashdot.org, or any variant thereof should have a valid use for that name. I'm personally somewhat offended by the people who register porn names as a trivial misspelling of a popular site, but I am equally offended when brought to a site such as domaincollection.com (who owns the lashdot.org and com domains) or that horrible "SEARCH THE INTERNET!" page at www.yaho.com.

Anywhere else this would be considered a misleading business practice. MacDowells serving Big Mic's? yaho.com running a search engine? Revoke their business licences, or throw the creeps in jail. This isn't a bad practice of porn sites, this is a bad practice.

Re:Great idea, but underly broad

[Anonymous Coward]

It's already illegal to infringe on a trademark. Using examples that are already illegal doesn't prove in any way that it would be beneficial to make the wider case illegal.

Re:Great idea, but underly broad

[Spudley]

Anywhere else this would be considered a misleading business practice. MacDowells serving Big Mic's? yaho.com running a search engine? Revoke their business licences, or throw the creeps in jail. This isn't a bad practice of porn sites, this is a bad practice.

You see, that's a large part of the problem: you don't need a business licence to register and run a domain name.

Re:Great idea, but underly broad

[vreiner]

MacDowells serving Big Mic's? yaho.com running a search engine? Revoke their business licences, or throw the creeps in jail. This isn't a bad practice of porn sites, this is a bad practice.

And yet the Supreme Court just ruled (I believe 8-1) in favor of Victor's Little Secret, a small "adult novelty" (ie sex toy) store which was sued by Victoria's Secret as diluting their trademark... does this go over the line as far as you're concerned?

A Hot, Slippery Topic

[jvmatthe]

We are, indeed, all tied up by our very own language in this matter. It would be unwise to let Congress ram a bill down our throats that satisfies many people, I'd argue passionately that a long, hard battle over the real issues would lead to legislation that would please everyone in the end. Even those who are into deviant sects could potentially be won over, provided that a compromise is hammered out.

Re:A Hot, Slippery Topic

[Anonymous Coward]

If I ever meet you, I'm going to buy you a beer.

Re:A Hot, Slippery Topic

[Spudley]

Haha! You definitely deserve a +1 Funny or two, just for that subject line. :-)

Sorry I couldn't give 'em to you.

Re:A Hot, Slippery Topic

[tuxedobob]

You read the rest of the post too, right?

Sega.com

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Video game manufacturer
2. Segway domain squatter
3. Porn site

sega: present tense third-person singular or command form of present tense second-person singular of segare, Italian slang for "to masturbate".

Re:Sega.com

[tuxedobob]

I think you forgot the obligatory:

4. Profit!!!

which in that case, might actually work.

Misleading Advertising

[MopOfJustice]

I thought we already had laws about misleading advertising. Isn't a domain name essentially and advertisement?

Consider .porn

[smoondog]

I really think the internet should consider a .porn tld (and a .kids for that matter). This would take care of a lot of these problems without making someone evaluate ridiculous cases. (I'm not saying I'm in favor of it, but there are some interesting arguments that would be worthy of public debate, IMO)

-Sean

Use .kids instead

[coyote-san]

Wrong idea - you don't want to erect artificial partitions between adults. What I consider fairly innocent may shock you, and vice versa, and the "compromise" invariably leaves the "mainstream" stuff incredibly banal while marginalizing even mildly provocative stuff.

I remember a good example of this years ago. Newsweek decided to put an artistic nude on its front cover for a story on the arts, and a lot of people were outraged at it. Meanwhile far more people were shocked at these knuckle-walkers getting worked up over this. It wasn't porn, it wasn't close to porn, and bare nipples have occured in art throughout history. Even the Victorians, who required "shapely" furniture legs to be covered, never suppressed such art. If we need to do this now "to protect the kids," the price is too high.

Yet that's exactly what these laws would do. Can you imagine having to go to an "adult" site to browse a garden shop's web site? You would (if not under this law, then under others) because the concrete cherubs are, gasp, naked!

If we need to protect the children (and by "children" I mean true children) then we should establish a "safe harbor" for them, not attempt to force everyone else into an adult ghetto. Create a TLD .kids for them, and leave the rest alone.

(BTW, I thought that the .kids domain *had* been created a while back, or at least authorized. Am I mistaken? Or is this bill just more grandstanding?)

Q: Why Not Require V Rated Tags?

[4of12]

So after all the V-chip things going on, I have to wonder why there simply isn't a move by ICANN to require any registered domains that serve up HTML to include tags for browsers to tailor their display

<meta name="sexual explicity" content="bare nipples goats">
<meta name="violence" content="bonsai kitten" >

I know that some consensus would be hard to achieve between people with vastly different ideas of what is proper (repressive governments, for example, would want more tags for outlawing Bad Thought), but I think something like this could work and permit pornophiles their pleasures while allowing young kids an internet that wasn't rife with smutty pop-ups.

Re:Q: Why Not Require V Rated Tags?

[redcliffe]

Well there is already such a system, with http://www.w3.org/PICS/RSACI and it's a w3c standard.

Re:OT: Why is moderation turned off in this thread

[KITT_KATT!*]

It might be because you'd contributed to the discussion? You can't mod and post in the same story. (Just a thought - you probably know this and it may be something else entirely).

Closed down?

[GuyMannDude]

If I had a brick-and-mortar store called "Freddie's Fuzzie Kitties" and people walked in to find a hardcore porn store, it would be closed in 10 minutes, and rightly so.

Maybe I'm a bit naive, but I find it hard to believe that there are laws on the books that would allow police to close down an establishment solely based on the premise that the name is deceptive. Please, someone, tell me this isn't so.

I understand your frustration about children being exposed to smut. And you're probably correct that porn sites that use innocent-sounding names are trying to trick people into looking at their wares. But I really don't want laws on the books telling business people what they can and can't name their stores. That seems way too creepy to me. Perhaps there are some decency laws on the books to prevent someone from naming their porn store "The Fuck Shop" in big neon letters. But the image of police raiding a store because they thought the name was deceptive is way too spooky to me. Besides, who determines whether it's deceptive?

GMD

Re:Closed down?

[sh00z]

I find it hard to believe that there are laws on the books that would allow police to close down an establishment solely based on the premise that the name is deceptive.

The poster didn't claim that it would be the police who closed it down. My first image was of a sidewalk protest by angry soccer moms.

Re:OT: Why is moderation turned off in this thread

[jweb]

Actually, I had 2 mod points remaining before I posted... I started reading comments, wanted to mod one up (don't remember which one anymore), but the option wasn't available. Apparently it's working now (I see that there's one comment modded up to 4) but too late for me... my mod points timed out this afternoon. Oh well, there's always next time.

Re:OT: Why is moderation turned off in this thread

[KITT_KATT!*]

Irritating though! Were you able to spend them elsewhere?

Re:OT: Why is moderation turned off in this thread

[jweb]

Unfortunately, no. I got them on Sunday, used 3 of them right away. Then I was offline for a couple of days. I tried to use them in this thread before I left work, but couldn't. When I got home, they were timed out. Oh well. I'm not too worried about it, as I tend to get mod points fairly often (about every 8 or 9 days, a couple times I've had 5 fresh mod points within a few hours of using my last one).

stoooopid

[BortQ]

The main problem with laws like this is who gets to decide what is innocent and what is not.

What about bambi, nurses, cheerleaders, milk, feet, etc... They are all innocent words, but would make perfect porn domains.

Think of the children!

[goldcd]

I'm highly dubious of any law passed that's purpose is to protect the morality of others, who it is always inferred are unable to deal with it themselves. Whilst I'm not advocating the inclusion of pornography on the school syllabus, it seems completely barking mad to try to develop a system where every possible contact with particular topics are banned until a single day - and then suddenly expect your new adult to deal with it all. If content were illegal there are many ways to deal with it as laws currently stand, for everything else surely a gradual exposure is more beneficial for all concerned.

Re:Think of the children!

[Anonymous Coward]

a system where every possible contact with particular topics are banned until a single day - and then suddenly expect your new adult to deal with it all

That's usually D-Day minus one. The following day usually involves ammo belts, facepaint, and clock towers.

filthy names that lead only to inoccuous content

[minaguib]

http://www.donkeynuts.com comes to mind!

good idea, lets extend it.

[WickedLogic]

How about a law making it illegal to pass bills with innocent looking names?

Re:filthy names that lead only to inoccuous conten

[sh00z]

moviepooper.com

King of the Hill Fans Watch Out!!

[bustergonad]

I'll go you one better,... years ago there was an episode of "King of the Hill" where Peggy is tricked into having her feet pose for an Internet Porn site,..which was named "peggysfeet.com" Now this is clearly repeated over and over in the episode,..peggysfeet.com,.. of course when the show first aired during prime-time, that domain was owned by a Fox company,..and basically is was a tongue-in-cheek promo site for the show,.. but now that the show is in syndication,.. the domain name has lapsed and been picked up by squatters,.. (evil purveyers of porn!!!) yet, in the episode,.. (in reruns!) the site is still called,... "peggysfeet.com" so now Fox, and the stations airing this show are inadvertantly advertising a porn site in a cartoon,... hmmmm, so does this bill included promoting porn sites in a carton?

In a sense, it already is...

[Millennium]

Theoretically, one could already press charges of fraud, since the site is very demonstrably not what a reasonable person would interpret its site name as claiming to be.

Therefore, no further -and more to the point, no special- legislation should be necessary. This law is not needed.

That's part of the problem with legislative bodies: they're always looking to make new laws without bothering to do any real research as to whether or not an existing law can be considered applicable. IANAL, of course, but I think the legislative code could be much simpler, with all the same effects, if they'd just do that.

it's called "responsibility"

[ChristTrekker]

It's quite simple, actually. You don't understand "personal responsibility"? Then I'm afraid I can't help you much there. But let me try to explain anyway.

You: It's not my fault I conceived a baby! Kill it now!

Or...

You: It's not my fault I conceived and gave birth to a baby! Someone else should feed and clothe it, not me!

If those sound ridiculous, it's because they are. Who else's "fault" is it? The baby didn't just appear out of thin air! Listen, dacetone...if you don't want to deal with the consequences of sex, then don't have sex! Sex is not merely a recreational activity. The sooner you realize that, and take responsibility for your actions, the better off we'll all be. If you make the bad decision to unzip your pants, your baby should not take the brunt of the consequences, and neither should I.

The welfare society we live in today was caused by capitulating to those who refused to live up to their responsibilities. So the rest of us, being the caring and generous people we are, made it even easier for them to shirk their duties! Boy, were we stupid. We should have left welfare in the hands of private charities. If you want a freebie, humble yourself enough to ask for it and live within the guidelines established by the organization you chose. (A little more humility in general wouldn't hurt.) But expecting "society at large" to pick up your tab because we have no choice in the matter is simply irresponsibility and theft.

Re:it's called "responsibility"

[Anonymous Coward]

You want to let murderers live, but kill innocent vulnerable children?

Simple answer to this one: It isn't a child (yet), but a growth inside the mother.

Convince me that a first- or second-trimester "child" posesses sentience, and maybe -- just maybe -- I'll share your view. (OTOH, I'll still be in favor of birth control technology which prevents conception from occuring in the first place).

Re:it's called "responsibility"

[ChristTrekker]

Spontaneous generation was disproven centuries ago - life does not arise from nothing. And since I doubt you'd argue that the unborn is at any stage a dog, a guppy, a turnip, or anything other than a human fetus, it is in fact a human - albeit one at a very vulnerable stage of its development.

Either it's life from conception, or from an arbitrary point that we (flawed) humans decide. What if we decide wrong? That's argument enough to convince me that legally babies should have all the protections of human life from conception, even if I didn't believe they actually are.

Of course, I'm in favor of "conception control" also. Being against abortion doesn't mean I'm in favor of creating children by the litter. I can't afford to raise a dozen kids, so my wife and I choose not to create that many. We act responsibly from the beginning, understanding the consequences of our actions.

it's called "responsibility"

[ChristTrekker]

That's because it's not about "death" as such. It's about responsibility.

A baby is not responsible for coming into this world, it's parents are. To kill the baby for a "mistake" of the parents is irresponsibility, and a crime, on their part.

A murderer is responsible for the crime, assuming due process and fair trial, as we are guaranteed in a free society. To punish a murderer for a crime is justice.

I hope you see the distinction, and understand why the anti-abortion pro-capital punishment rationale is logical and consistent. Personally, I find the reverse viewpoint incomprehensible. You want to let murderers live, but kill innocent vulnerable children?

whitehouse.com isn't named after the house in D.C.

[CSG_SurferDude]

Trivia: Whitehouse.com is NOT named after the Whitehouse in Washington DC, but after Mary Whitehouse, an Anti-Porn fanatic.

Reference: Google search

Not the way

[amcguinn]

The aim of this is perfectly reasonable, but I have real problems with using legislation. Basically, I do not see "the internet" as a public utility that should be regulated by lawmakers

I would be more sympathetic to a more general law that prohibited "advertising obscene content in a misleading way" or something (it would have to be worded a lot more tightly than that, but you see what I am driving at). Pulling up a consensual, commercial system like DNS and slapping laws on it just is the wrong way to go about things. In a few years as the technology moves on, more laws will be needed and the state will be in the position of firing shotgun blast after blast at a moving target; sometimes hitting, sometimes missing, and usually spraying a few bystanders with buckshot.

What I am getting at is that laws should target the fundamentals, not the implementation details. Advertising and Obscenity are fundamentals. Domain names, search engine listings and the like are implementation details.

Protection of children on the internet ought to be market driven. It has not been successful enough because of the fraudulent advertising of web filtering product vendors. If the public were more aware of the fact that blacklist-based products like NetNanny do not work, there would be a market for workable alternatives based on whitelisting. As it is, the prospective customers of a working system are instead buying the crap.

Re:filthy names that lead only to inoccuous conten

[mikehilly]

This site rocks! I can't decide if I like the Donkey or the nuts better. LOL !!

Re:whitehouse.com isn't named after the house in D

[Anonymous Coward]

A (puerile softcore) TV porn channel in the UK went free-to-air for an hour the night she died.

While I see some points.

[Irvu]

Such as not wanting to click an "innocent-sounding" link and then see someone eating crap I think that this is an area where a simple law will not suffice.

The problem is that there are two issues under discussion here. The first is, what constituted "adult material?" and the second is "what constitutes misleading terms?"

Congress has tried again and again to define "Adult materials" but every attempt has been fraught with some difficulty. Most people would agree that pictures of one man eating crap or graphic sex are for adults but what about the New York Times? They print (sometimes) graphic pictures of war and violence and discuss topics such as HIV, Starvation, Karl Rove, and other things that could scar children. So must they register as an Adult site? All they say is "news." The same gor for protests sites, and indeed most of the world.

With that in mind lets turn to the notion of fale advertising. Personally I support laws that oppose it and I am incredibly pissed that Nike is claiming the right to lie. But, all those laws deal strictly with factual statements. When Nike says that they do not employ slave labor or ford says that their Pinto does not fishtail and explode in flames then those are factual statements that can be independently verified.

When a domain name such as Whitehouse.com is put up then the question of whether or not it is misleading is one of opinion. I personally have entered it in by accident and been annoyed but, at the same time I recognize that ".com" signifies a different domain than ".gov" and expect it to be different. As other posters have pointed out witehousecom has been around for a while and is highly generic.

Therefore any court case on the issue would devolve into the owners claiming that they don't see it as misleading and some parent's group claiming that it is. The courts would be forced to decide between two opinions. This is, of course something that they do all the time but it is always fraught with landmines.

Moreover, opinions change over time, as do names. Consider "XXX." That string has long signified strong porn. Now that Vin Diesel has made a movie of the same name however that is open for debate. What do you say when some pre-teen Diesel fan enters XXX-fans.com or some other name and finds something that their parents don't want them to see. All of a sudden the porn distributors have a new legal challenge on their hands.

This is why I favor greenspaces such as the .kids domain (legislation that has already passed the house BTW). In this case the law allows sites to opt-in and for parents to restrict their browsers if they wish. Going this route is like taking your kids to a private park or a publiuc one. In thje private park you can let them run free. In the public one you have to take a part but now parents know that they are getting into. Similarly the rest of us aren't forced to censor ourselves everywhere for fear of someone, somewhere seeing "adult" things.

I wonder if this is motivated by the fact that some browsers treat "foo" on the URL line as "foo.com" automatically thus making a child's entry of "whitehouse" into "Whitehouse.com"?

Irvu.

omething that can be done

Re: Obligatory Simpsons Reference

[falsified]

http://www.whatbeaverseat.com is a similar website that FOX made just because it was mentioned (in this case, Lisa shows the family the webpage). It even comes with a couple Flash games.

.kids networks a great idea

[Seq]

I believe that there is a .kids.us domain, if i'm not mistaken.

Personally, I think this is a good idea (I'm in .ca myself). Why not create a separate netowork for kids? Its easy enough to limit a child's browser profile to .kids.us, or .kids.ca (which doesnt exist yet). This would also be a very easy way to give children email as well.

Porn spammers dont want to get involved with sending porn spam to kids. Whether or not they are worried about getting in trouble or not, children dont have credit cards, and thus they are wasting their money by sending mail there.

Setting up .kids domians, and having kids webmail would be great and simple. Anyone who can write spamming scripts can do a regular expression to ignore any @kids.?? domains it comes across. As I said earlier, it's useless spamming kids (at least with the kind of spam I get).

When the child and their parent are creating an email address at, for example, mail.kids.ca, they can select from a list of registered mailing lists (i.e. Poka-dot-door updates list, etc). If a child wishes to add a mailing list to their account, maybe it could email their guardian for permission. Any parent, especially of younger children, should be making sure nothing bad comes in anyway.

This doesnt neccessarily need to be a TLD, but part of country's domain. That way one could also get localized information (i.e. Mr. Dressup vs. Mr. Rogers).

The idea of limiting current domains is kind of nuts, I think.

Curious about the idea of simulated child porn

[Kevoco]

According to what I've read here:
CNET Article

"The House passed a bill which makes it illegal for child pornographers to disseminate obscene, computer-generated images of children," Bush said. "It's an important piece of legislation."

Would this be illegal?:
Drunk Bottemless "dancing" Baby

Most sites

[Anonymous Coward]

don't have offensive content on their front page, for the very reason that minors are supposed to view them, AND they also make it clear that you're visiting an adult-oriented site.

In the US, there is a minority of people who think they know what's best for the rest of us: you should wear a seat belt; you need to wear a motorcycle helmet; gay sex is illegal; christianity is great - come join us, etc. This might even be a broader, western thing, but here in the US, I can't be trusted to think and judge for myself, yet I can vote and own a firearm.