Utah Wants To Give ISPs That Filter a "G-Rating"

An anonymous reader writes "HB407 in Utah would create a child-friendly designation for ISPs that block out a range of prohibited materials. Google, Yahoo, and others are fighting the bill, but Rep. Michael Morley says, 'I think it's a positive thing for those who are looking for a site that is dedicated to fighting pornography.'"

Comments

Unworkable

[milsoRgen]

It will never work, the state and/or companies that would try and implement it would needlessly expose themselves to liability once parents who let the computer screen baby sit their kids realize it's not fool proof.

Re:Unworkable

[KublaiKhan]

The weakness in that argument is that it requires that parents take responsibility and make an effort to educate themselves.

Your typical soccer mom "doesn't know anything about computers" and has no interest in doing so--but wants to make sure the kids are safe, because anything other than total and utter safety Just Won't Do.

Now, if you decided to build yourself a cheapass firewall/filter/proxy appliance, form factor about the same as your typical cable modem and priced at about the $50 point you mentioned (with, say, $19.95/month updating service) that you could plug inline between the modem and the home LAN, you could conceivably make a profit--but if it required any activation by the parent more complicated than a typical windows "click yes" wizard and selecting a secret code, you can forget about any sort of widespread adoption.

Re:!Censorship

[phoenix.bam!]

There is absolutely no need for the government to become involved in this. If a company wants to offer a filtered package, that is something they can advertise. The government has no business rating ISPs based on its arbitrary standards.