Challenging the Child Online Protection Act 213
narramissic writes, "Today in Philadelphia a federal trial got underway that will decide whether COPA is constitutional. The outcome will determine whether operators of Web sites can be held accountable for failing to block children's access to inappropriate materials. An article on ITworld outlines the arguments of the foes in the battle: the DOJ and the ACLU. If I were a betting woman, I'd put my money on the ACLU. Parents, schools, etc. have to take responsibility for the internet usage of children in their charge." Two courts have found COPA unconstitutional and the Supreme Court has upheld the ban on its enforcement, while asking a lower court to examine whether technological measures such as filtering could be as effective as the law in shielding children; thus this trial. The article does not mention that it was the DOJ's preparation for the trial that was behind its earlier request that search companies turn over their records — a request that only Google refused.
I'll just say it in advance (Score:5, Interesting)
Comment 2: It's the parents job to police their kids
Comment 3: Parents can't police all the time
Just call this a meta-post so that we can get the generic comments out of the way.
Re:I'll just say it in advance (Score:4, Funny)
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Our new child protecting, internet sanitizing overlords and their army of enslaved ISP admins?
COPA is idiotic (Score:2)
Re:COPA is idiotic (Score:4, Insightful)
It would take someone about 15 minutes tops to generate a CC# to use on one of these sites. Unless they are going to require every adult related sited to take credit cards, they are only going to hit the CC validation routines, not test if they are valid accounts. Oh, and is the US government going to give out a free credit card with every bankruptcy now also?
By the way, if I'm a US citizen, running a company based in Switzerland, hosting a site through a UK company, with servers based in Canada - does this law apply? How about if the domain is registered through a US company, but me, the company, the host, and the servers are all based outside the US?
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Why? Tonnes and tonnes of free pr0n on images.google.com
Why waste your time?
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I think you just don't want to pay the taxman.
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No, COPA is working as designed. (Score:5, Insightful)
DOS: No serial number required.
95/98/SE: To cut down on casual piracy, enter this serial number.
Win2K: Since that didn't work, it might phone home unless you ask nicely that it not phone home.
XP: Since that didn't work, it won't activate until you let it phone home. Don't worry, we won't nuke existing installations.
Vista: Since that didn't work, we'll nuke any box that stops phoning.
Or if we're talking copyright - witness the evolution of the NET Act ("It's a crime if you sell it"), the DMCA ("It's a crime if you crack DRM"), and the attempt to pass something harsher (SSSCA/CBDTPA) a few years later. (Look for another attempt after the elections, and/or something to mandate DRM into the hardware specifications, as Vista takes hold in the marketplace and is once again cracked...)
COPA was designed to ensure that under-12 kids could get Myspace pages, that under-18 kids can click "I'm over 18" to see b00bies, and that (not legally required, but I've seen it on many brewery/winery/distillery pages) under-21 people can click "I'm over 21" to read about booze.
After a few years, and after enough "horror stories" have appeared in the press about how 11-year-olds are being victimized on Myspace, 15-year-olds are seeing teh b00bies, and underage drinkers are able to read about beer, legislators will have a wide selection ready-made excuses to come up with some sort of "Real ID" or single-signon system for the Intertubes.
The courts only decide whether or not something's constitutional. Until they do so, it is constitutional. When the courts strike down COPA, it will be replaced by something even worse.
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Please click the following link to see a couple of really nice boobies.
http://www.hickerphoto.com/data/media/40/ad_32741
Damn!! (Score:3, Funny)
(My line of work is ornithology of course)
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BIG nit: (Score:5, Interesting)
Sorry, no cigar.
IF the court declares something unconstitutional, it was ALWAYS unconstitutional. It "didn't exist". Get out of jail free, etc.
Not that it matters a whole lot. The problem is fourfold:
1) Until the court throws the law out, you have no idea whether it will.
2) Neither does the rest of the legal system. So it still goes after you. "Get out of jail free." doesn't refund your bondsman's fee, your lawyer's fee, replace your lost chunk of lifetime, reassemble the broken family, get you your job back - with back pay, replace your repossessed house and car, restore your credit rating, replace the expensive collectable guns you had to dispose of, fill in the hole in your resume, etc. It does purge the criminal record - which doesn't help you if the info is already out in hundreds of non-court databases. And even if they knew damned well this one would get thrown out you have no way to sue them. "I vas Chust Dooink my Chob!"
3) The courts normally don't even take up the issue until somebody gets convicted of violating the law in question AND there's NO other way to dispose of the case without addressing the issue. Even then it takes the Supreme Court to definitively strike a new law, and they can arbitrarily refuse to even hear it - which they usually will do unless two appellate courts disagree, and sometimes even then.
and...
4) It takes a LOT of time and work to strike a law. It takes the legislators and chief exec very little time and work to pass another like it, with slight tweaks.
And another. And another. And another dozen. And another thousand. And put riders on every "must-pass" bill, like the budget, or a use-of-force authorization, or
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Comment 4: (Score:3, Insightful)
Gah, kids don't spontaneously explode if they don't wear a helmet while tricycling.
Re:Comment 4: (Score:5, Funny)
You're clearly not rigging the detonators properly.
How is this different that TV? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want the internet filtered for your kid, install and manage your own filtering software. It's the parent's responsibility to take charge of what their children are doing, viewing, etc. It's not the content provider's problem at all, particular on a medium like the internet where you have no face to face interaction (e.g. checking ID). Frankly, if you require a valid credit card, I think you'd solve the whole issue.
My objection lies with of some of the banner ads and emails, which can be really atrocious. From time to time, I get things in my Inbox that make me cringe and wish I would remove them from my brain. "Barnyard" and "hot lovin'" should NEVER appear in the same sentence. I can only imagine something like that coming to a small child....
2 cents,
QueenB
Re:How is this different that TV? (Score:5, Insightful)
Half would say "ewwww" and half would start laughing, then they'd all turn on the TV or go out and play. Kids are not as fragile as we make them out to be, and most are terribly uninterested in all of that icky adult stuff.
Or to quote, "Stop. They're KISSING again. Go on to the fire swamp, that sounded good..."
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Re:How is this different that TV? (Score:4, Insightful)
If a parent purchases all of the naughty cable channels, then their kids have access to those as well. The cable company does nothing to prevent those kids from seeing those channels. If the parents want to prevent their kids from watching that, they use the filtering built into the client, the TV.
The same goes for the internet. The parent purchases access to the whole internet. The ISP does nothing to prevent kids from seeing naughty sites. If the parents want to prevent their kids from visiting those sites, they use the filtering software available for the client, the computer.
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Re:How is this different that TV? (Score:4, Interesting)
If parents want the equivalent of cable for their kids, they should get AOL and block the normal internet. Or buy a whitelist package that is voluntarily supported by certain websites. Everything else is blocked. They get the equivalent diversity of cable channels. That's what they want, right? Anything that is remotely threatening to their little world to disappear? They can have that, quite easily. But instead they want it both ways: the full diversity of the internet combined with the lack of active parenting that the very limited diversity of cable requires.
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porn spam (Score:2)
My objection lies with of some of the banner ads and emails, which can be really atrocious. From time to time, I get things in my Inbox that make me cringe and wish I would remove them from my brain. "Barnyard" and "hot lovin'" should NEVER appear in the same sentence. I can only imagine something like that coming to a small child....
Some ISPs, I know mine does, offer spam filters. I've got my filter set so that any email I get from someone I don't have their addy in my addressbook goes into either a sp
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The name is wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
Copa is idiotic. (Score:3, Insightful)
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Political vs Commercial Speach (Score:4, Insightful)
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I'm not sure what you're referring to. Freedom of speech is balanced along with our other freedoms and case law has upheld political speech as the most stringently protected, while commercial speech is the least protected based upon how that speech conflicts with other rights. For example, claiming a political candidate is the best choice because they don't kill people is much more highly protected than a commercial claiming a product does not kill people. In the former case, even if the speech was factuall
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Actually courts have been fairly consistent in ruling hate speech (aka fightin' words) to have the least amount of constitutional protection.
Well, hate speech that is political almost always wins when it gets to federal court, but if you're talking about speech that is directed at an individual then it can constitute assault or blackmail, or a threat and yes that speech has little protection because it conflicts very strongly with other basic rights that are also protected by the law. You make a good poi
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I don't see any reference to that distinction in the Constitution.....
Yet the courts support different standards for all sorts of speech. Print > Broadcast > Advertising, for example. Personal web pages and comments are generally afforded the same protection as print. Not all speech is created equal.
Like it or not, the courts have as much role as the legislative branch in making laws, as far as practical matters are concerned.
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I've never seen "seperation of church and state", "right to privacy", "right to their own body", and many other things in there... but they keep appearing. It doesn't matter which side you're on. The "living document" keeps "evolving" new words that we must abide by even if they don't seem to be written there.
You've got to keep a close watch on people. Everyone from atheist to the far religeous right to NAMBLA to the ACLU seem to think The Constiution says they are right. It may, it may not, but they all c
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Please see the Ninth Amendment, as well as the Fourth.
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free speech and privacy (Score:2)
Among non-lawyers, the Fourteenth Amendment is easily forgotten, but it is one of the greatest of them all, right up there with amendment one. It made institutionalized racism illegal, it ensures equality, and it gives due process rights to everyone. That last one is mindnumbingly important, it is what ensures that all americans are granted the liberties that they have a right to, even though they aren't specifically spelled out in the constitution. Stuff like abortions, contraceptives, choice in secual par
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---I've never seen "seperation of church and state"
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; (Bill of Rights, Amendment 1)
"right to privacy"
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly descri
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Well, that takes care of separation of church and Congress. So why is it unconstitutional for a school to force all students to say a Christian prayer - or to keep students from saying one if they want to? The principal isn't Congress.
As the OP said, it's the interpretation, not the exact wording.
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Thats right, the Congress. It would be illegal to fund forced religious happenings within a public institution. It is also against the law to keep their child home, due to truancy laws.
I can see why forced prayer in schools became illegal, along with valedectorian speeches of religion (you have no choice to avoid them). What I cant understand is when the schools prevent the students from privately saying them.
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That simply does not happen outside the American Family Association's press releases.
education (Score:2)
It is also against the law to keep their child home, due to truancy laws.
It is not illegal to keep children at home. More and more parents are homeschooling [about.com] thier children, and they can legally do this.
FalconRe: (Score:2)
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
Well, that takes care of separation of church and Congress. So why is it unconstitutional for a school to force all students to say a Christian prayer - or to keep students from saying one if they want to? The principal isn't Congress.
That's easy, forcing students to pray in school, if it is a public school means government is establishing a religion. I still recall having a teacher harshly
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You're wrong. The fourth amendment doesn't give you a full right to privacy, and it doesn't give you any rights to your own body. It gives you a right not to have your house searched without a warrant, but that's it. Sure that is a small part of privacy, but it sure as hell ain't the whole thing! It says nothing about, say, homosexuality (which is THE most important issue in privacy-law), nor does it mention right to your own body anywhere.
No, both of those rights are ensured by the due process clause of t
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What is Inappropriate? (Score:4, Insightful)
How does this affect web hosting companies? We host thousands of domains and I'm sure some of them could be considered inappropriate for kids.
It's not a site owner's job to filter out people that might be offended by the content, if you don't like a site don't go there.
Re:What is Inappropriate? (Score:5, Insightful)
What about bikini pics that you can make out anatomy through (oh wait, JC Penneys add three months ago had that and it ran in the newspaper too).
What about a lady in a full corset & stockings (that cover more than the bikini).
Someone else said it best here in the past.
PLEASE post a web page with a continuam of pictures from fully appropriate to fully inappropriate with each one flagged as to how appropriate or inappropriate it is. That way we can all go to it and see what is an is not appropriate to have on the web.
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A male transexual is a person born female, transitioning or transitioned to male.
A female transexual is a person born male, transitioning or transitioned to female.
Female transexuals are refered to as she/her, and male transexuals are refered to as him/he.
A male transexual would probably not wear a corset (corsets being largely gender innapropriate for males).
And a female transexual's nipples are no more legal to show in public then a geneti
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I would think from the context I was speaking of a male who had become a female.
Obviously the law varies in different parts of the country.
This is slash dot and I will use ABSOLUTELY casual examples in my casual conversations for any major or minor group.
And really it's easier to casually insult everyone equally without any malice rather than being paralyzed and unable to talk because I may not know the sub-rules that one member of
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What about Photoshopped pictures of a Supreme Court justice in a bikini [tobede.us]?
I had to give a presentation on my favorite SCOTUS justice, and, well, Ruth Bader Ginsburg wins. What can I say?
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Well I'm a parent, and I can partially answer that.
I have two kids, aged 4 and 6. Both of them know a bit about human anatomy. Both of them know what a human body looks like in its most natural state. It's not a big deal. Neither of them have yet asked how the baby gets inside a woman's tummy (though they've seen pictures of one coming out), but when it comes, they'll get a truthful (if undetailed, depending on how old they are) answer.
As intelligent as my kids are, though, at their ages I can't think
Boycott the uncensored net, then. (Score:2)
Obligatory (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Obligatory (Score:5, Interesting)
One of my favorite "Think of the children" quotes...
Nephilium
What good is the race of man? Monkeys, he thought, monkeys with a spot of poetry in them, cluttering and wasting a second-string planet near a third-string star. But sometimes they finish in style. -- Potiphar (Potty) Breen in The Year of the Jackpot
nanny state (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is it that the ACLU has to fight in court to get people to understand something that should be painfully obvious? Man up people, the government is not your mommy.
Re:nanny state (Score:4, Insightful)
If you can't trust your kid to obey the simple rules, by what right do you allow them to travel unescorted in public? You can and must be there every time your kid is unescorted by an adult; until such time as that child is old enough to be responsible for their own behaviour.
It's no one else's job to enforce your personal little taboos. Maybe you think women need to have their heads covered with scarves, and that your children shouldn't have to see women with their heads bared. Maybe you don't think they should hear anything aside from your religious beliefs. Maybe you want to indoctrinate them in any one of a thousand different ways.
Tough. Other people have rights, too. It's called free speech. If you don't want your young kids in a porn store, keep an eye on them until they're old enough to decide if they want to go in on their own. Once they're an adult, they get the right to make their own decisions. Until then, *you* have to take responsibility for their decisions.
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My 15 year old just pointed out to me that if I were to implement filtering or other measures, she would try to circumvent them to get where she wanted- if successful, then she would go to "worse sites than Foamy the Squirrel" ( she is turned off by pr0n, and Foamy is the most "subversive" site she visits).
I think that the best you can do is to influence your kids in their early formative years to instill a sense of values that reflect your
COPA is pointless (Score:5, Interesting)
"I am under 13"
"I am 13 or older."
Ok great! Now only the honest kids will be prevented from signing up to most forums. It's about as ridiculous as the "YES, I'm 18 or older" on adult pr0n sites.
It would seem as if COPA is only protecting the site operators in the event that something bad DOES happen to young childern. These kids can still get themselves into trouble if they want. I guess some people think that the fancy agreement is somehow significant (as seen in EULAs.)
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If it is obvious that the site owner should have known that [User] was below X years of age, they could theoretically be held liable.
Example: Myspace pages where kids claim "i was born in 1970" but also have "tee hee hee, I'm 12"
How bout filters.txt (Score:2)
So that I can say I did due diligence using standard protocols - you failed to protect your kid or your kid circumvented the protocol.
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awesome (Score:2, Funny)
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How about voluntary filtering? (Score:3, Insightful)
<META NAME="might_be_inaporopriate" CONTENT="true">
Let the net-nanny type apps handle it, and be done with it...
Its lot less painfull than moving to
I know l33t kids could get around it, but it's an offer of hand.
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Funny you mention that. There is a rating system called RSACi that does just this - and it is as easy as a few checkboxes [icra.org]. Internet Explorer supports filtering based on it, since 6.0 at least.
While not perfect, it would certainly filter better than just having "13 or older" and "less than 13" links to sign up for a forum!
HOW ABOUT PROTECT ME FROM THE CHILDREN (Score:5, Interesting)
I spent two years in prison for some bullshit some kid said on me, and I had to not only prove it was impossible, but had to hire a lawyer to find a technicality in the trial to say the trial was bogus. Otherwise, without having a family on the outside with a little bit of money, I would be rotting in prison today. Go ahead, tell me children don't lie about being molested. Go ahead, tell me children don't lie. Go ahead, tell me! I will look you dead in the eye and tell you how full of **** you are.
I bristle with anger whenever anybody does anything in the name of "protecting the children". These laws are being used to go on the equivalent of modern day witch hunts. Don't believe it? Wait until they come after you, and you're in front of a jury stating as plainly as possible, how what they are saying makes absolutely no sane common sense. It doesn't matter. The jury has been cherry picked jury of neo-conservative republicans. You'd get a much fairer jury if you stood outside Walmart and grabbed the first 13 people that walked in or out the door. When has any defendant ever had any say so or oversite in the picking of a jury? Answer: NEVER. Think about that. That's why America is so corrupt, its why everyone pleads out, its why you have the right to a jury trial in name only.
I think any person who wants to protect children, needs to start by granting children more basic human rights. For one thing, to be considered as citizens of the country, and not property of their parents. To be given a say so in the development and passing of the laws under which they have to live under. To have the voluntary right to opt out of schools, which have become indoctrination camps to teach people to jump when they are told.
There is no freedom in this country. You have freedom of mobility, and that's about it (and you have that anywhere). How many of the hundreds of thousands of laws on the books have you ever had any chance to vote on, ever been asked to vote on. How many of these bogus laws ever come up from review? Never. That's why there are ludicrous laws still on the book about not spitting from your donkey on the sidewalk in front of a lady during daylight hours.
These laws are passed in some place far away in a room by a select group of people and then applied nationwide to the majority, who are too busy with their own lives struggling to make ends meet to travel to find these backrooms and stand up (even though they wouldn't be let in the door).
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It's not just the kids [crimelibrary.com] who sometimes lie about this stuff. However....
When has any defendant ever had any say so or oversite in the picking of a jury? Answer: NEVER.
Sorry, but this is untrue. I've served on a jury before, and both sides' attorneys got ample opportunity to interview potential jurors and to dismiss the ones they didn't like (the number of dismissals varies by jurisdiction). They also get the chance to object to dis
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You're talking about a co
people are also falsely accused of rape (Score:2)
here, i've got a wacky idea for you: why don't we prosecute child predators AND prosecute false accusations of child endangerment
just like we should prosecute rapists AND prosecute false accusations of rape
the problem is thinking that because of your experience, we should weaken the fight against child predators. or that because child predators exist, we should disregard yor tragic experience
no
we can do BOTH: fight the false accusers, and the predators, at the s
picking juries (Score:2)
When has any defendant ever had any say so or oversite in the picking of a jury? Answer: NEVER. Think about that. That's why America is so corrupt, its why everyone pleads out, its why you have the right to a jury trial in name only.
I don't know where you are but in most places in the US both the prosecution and the defense can have potential jurors removed from the jury during jury selection. The judge too can remove them, and many will if the person knows about Jury Nullification [greenmac.com].
Falcon
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Re:HOW ABOUT PROTECT ME FROM THE CHILDREN (Score:4, Interesting)
how are other media handled? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Why not compel content providers to put up a simple "first line" barrier to consumption by minors? If Johnny's dad thinks it's okay for him to hit the porn, just get him a credit card.
And what is that "first line" of defense? Also some kids, teens, do have credit cards as well.
FalconRe: (Score:2)
Forcing your morality on others (Score:2, Interesting)
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Freedom is about many things.
Including the freedom of a community to take collective action against conduct it regards as profoundly anti-social.
Freedom of Speech in American constitutional law is rooted in a shared democratic faith in unconstrained political
Oh, really? (Score:2)
I am a parent... (Score:3, Interesting)
He clicked on a "sketchy" site that purported to have "hints and secrets".
A nice looking bare-chested woman popped up.
There was a couple second pause... then he nonchalantly clicked the "X".
Ok, so I am not sure what he would have done had I not been looking over his shoulder, but what more could you ask for?
As long as unexplained charges don't show up on my credit card, that is what you should expect your child to do while web surfing and "inappropriate" material appears.
it all just keeps coming back to the same thing (Score:4, Insightful)
I am so tired of hearing how the world failed to protect some idiot from their own stupidity or how the world failed to be the good partent to your child that you for some mysterious reason could not, and now somehow it's all our fault and you are totally innocent and victimized. There's an article here at least every 10 days with another sickening example of this retarded behavior.
Makes me sick. People, grow up!
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Re:Check out Bush's wrongdoing! (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:I can see a big problem here (Score:5, Informative)
Let's say - if kid wants to register for this kind of page it needs to be done by adult. How? Simple. Bu using credit card.
You're out of date. More and more minors are getting credit cards.
Of course there's a problem - less kids registered - means less income.
If you're talking about kids and porn sites, you're way off. Do you know anyone in the porn business? Kids don't have a lot of money but do have time. Kids don't like to create records of porn viewing and don't want anyone to be able to track them. They are the least likely to pay any money of all demographics. Do you know what is really bad for a porn business? Publicity. Clients like to be anonymous because of the social stigma. One case of parents catching kids using a site can cause a huge hubbub and lose them a lot of business as their clients move elsewhere to avoid any possible publicity.
Most porn cites would be very happy to have a way to stop kids from visiting their sites. It would be good for business. Most porn cites voluntarily submit their names to parental controls lists and the major ones even help fund a consolidated database to make it easier for the industry to have good listings. They also tend to use good keywords to help search cites accurately mark them as adult. Less registered kids means more income and less liability, not less income.
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credit card requirement doesn't prevent a child from getting access to Naughty Stuff. It prevents them from doing it without their parents knowledge. When the parent sees Playboy on the kid's credit card, she/he will know that something is up, and have the opportunity to (a) cancel the charge (and thus the acces), and (b) go have a talk with the kid.
Just because you use a credit card, er give a porn website a credit card number, doesn't mean it will appear on the credit card bill, some porn sites ask fo
credit card checks (Score:2)
But be honest, how can you check the age of kid? There's no way. Only way would be to use some kind of adult interaction. Let's say - if kid wants to register for this kind of page it needs to be done by adult. How? Simple. Bu using credit card. AFAIK it's quite popular with pr0n sites (no, I'm not registered with even one). This way companies can always put a blame on adults, effectively protecting themselves from being sued.
I see two problems with using credit cards, well three, for an age check:
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Not to be a dick or anything, but some parents actually teach their kids how to shoot. Something about spending quality time with them or some such nonsense.
children and guns (Score:2)
I see kids knowing how to use guns. Who's fault is that? the parent.
I hope kids are learning how to use guns, er firearms. I knew how to shoot and clean a rifle before I was ten. Both my best friend's dad and mine took us out target shooting. What they stressed most though was to respect firearms. I don't have any children now but if I ever do, I'll teach them to shoot as soon as I believe they are ready.
Falcon