Use misleading domain name; go to jail

[pam]

http://msnbc-cnet.com.com/2100-1028-994201.html?type=pt&part=msnbc&tag=alert&form=feed&subj=cnetnews

 

[GeorgeK]

I went to www.buns.com and didn't find any bread there......so misleading!

 

[YOYOYO]

Oh yeah!, it's here we go again time.

Get those amendments warmed up.......

I've been following this for a couple weeks and it's laughable.

Now all of sudden it could be part of the law.

Democracy 4 you

 

[timechange.com]

had you beat by 2 1/2 hours
http://www.dnforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=25575

 

[bidawinner]

So you have a problem with that ?

Pence's amendment says that anyone who uses a misleading domain name to try to lure people into visiting an obscene Web site faces up to two years in prison, and anyone who tries to lure a minor to a sexually explicit site that is "harmful to minors" faces up to four years in prison. It applies to any Internet domain name, including those in non-U.S. country codes like .uk or .nl, and a congressional source predicted it would pass easily during the expected floor vote.

I think they are going to easy on the child porn..why not just take them out and shot them ?

 

[MillerTyme]

I'm a pretty conservative person, but this irks me.
I really don't think its the govs forte to decide what words are 'innocent-sounding'.................
So if you go to puffy.com and get a nipple site thats wrong ?
NUTS

 

[beatz]

It's like it is with TV:

If as a parent you're not able to keep your child from watching violent movies, it's *your* fault ( because it's part of your parent duty to make sure your kid doesn't watch those movies), not the moviemaker's or the tv station's fault.

Same with the internet - if you think your kid should surf the web, then it's up to *you* to make sure it won't come across pornsites.
One way to be sure of that is that you as a parent choose which sites your kid is allowed to visit.

In any way, it's ridiculous how people or a possible law like the proposed one try to pass reponsibility away from parents or people in general to law, govt or companies.

 

[namedropper]

I like the intent behind this, but I don't see how it could be anything but unconstitutionally vague.

They'd be far better off demanding that the default page for any pornographic site include only plain text indicating that the site inside is adult, and not a bunch of pictures and porn pop ups and such. If the intent is not to have children suddenly wandering upon hard core porn by typing in domains that wouldn't logically lead to it, requiring a blank warning page is a heck of lot more reliable and understandable than just having someone trying to decide which words are deceptive and which aren't.

 

[jberryhill]

Here's the exact text of the substantive part of the bill, which doesn't have anything to do with "harmful to children" or child pornography:

"Sec. 2252B. Misleading domain names on the Internet

`Whoever knowingly uses a misleading domain name with the intent to attract a minor into viewing a visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct on the Internet shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both. For the purposes of this section, a domain name that includes the word `sex' is not misleading.'

You can find the text of pending legislation at thomas.loc.gov

Let's break it down into its elements to understand the offense sought to be defined:

1. You must knowingly use a "misleading" domain name. That is, the domain name must be known to you to be misleading.

2. You must do so with the intent to attract a minor...

3. into viewing a visual depiction of...

4. sexually explicit conduct

You would not be guilty if you do not know the domain name to be misleading; you do not intend to attract minors; the domain name does not lead to visual depictions; or the material shown is not of sexually explicit conduct. There is an additional portion of the bill that defines anything with "sex" in it to not be misleading.

So, for example, PikachusExcellentPlaceForKids.com would not be misleading, because it has "sex" in it.

On the other hand a sex shop called LoveToys.com may be misleading, because it might sound like a place to buy toys.

The thing is, though, that the second example is going to hinge on whether the prosecution can prove intent to attract minors, which would be a difficult thing to do with a name like "love toys".

 

[DomainGoon]

Originally posted by jberryhill
Here's the exact text of the substantive part of the bill, which doesn't have anything to do with "harmful to children" or child pornography:

"Sec. 2252B. Misleading domain names on the Internet

`Whoever knowingly uses a misleading domain name with the intent to attract a minor into viewing a visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct on the Internet shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both. For the purposes of this section, a domain name that includes the word `sex' is not misleading.'

You can find the text of pending legislation at thomas.loc.gov

Let's break it down into its elements to understand the offense sought to be defined:

1. You must knowingly use a "misleading" domain name. That is, the domain name must be known to you to be misleading.

2. You must do so with the intent to attract a minor...

3. into viewing a visual depiction of...

4. sexually explicit conduct

You would not be guilty if you do not know the domain name to be misleading; you do not intend to attract minors; the domain name does not lead to visual depictions; or the material shown is not of sexually explicit conduct. There is an additional portion of the bill that defines anything with "sex" in it to not be misleading.

So, for example, PikachusExcellentPlaceForKids.com would not be misleading, because it has "sex" in it.

On the other hand a sex shop called LoveToys.com may be misleading, because it might sound like a place to buy toys.

The thing is, though, that the second example is going to hinge on whether the prosecution can prove intent to attract minors, which would be a difficult thing to do with a name like "love toys".

This law should be found unconstitutional, in my opinion.

However, doesn't it seem that a simple warning page on the front of the site, telling kids to get lost, would show that your "intent" was not to bring kids to the site?

For example, if you own Beauty.com and you have a warning page that says "Click Here Only If You Are Over 18 And Want To See Naked People". Then the intent of the domain is not to show adult material to kids.

What do you think?

 

[pam]

Hm, I have an adult toy store .... though there are not one but 2 disclaimer pages you have to go through, which I would think is enough to show I don't want anyone under 21 in my toy store.

 

[beatz]

Originally posted by jberryhill
..Whoever knowingly uses a misleading domain name with the intent to attract a minor into...

Even more interesting is

"§2252B

a) Whoever knowingly uses a misleading domain name with the intent to attract a *person* into viewing a visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct on the Internet shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both."

Note in a) it just says "person", it's b) where it says "minor".

If this bill should go through with a) included, then say goodbye to the free internet market.

Btw - who is to decide what is misleading and what is not?

So far i've only seen what is *not* misleading from the bills perspective.

Another question; say, the bill goes through but i still use a domain they might consider "misleading" redirecting to porn - now, as i'm from germany...would they have the right to delete my domain or take it away from me?

Heh, maybe they would even send the FBI from the US to my door in germany to imprison me?

Read the whole thing here:
http://www.house.gov/rules/pence.pdf?tag=nl

 

[bidawinner]

Bush for President 4 more years..Bush 4 More years, 4 more years. ..come on everyone..this is what you wanted

I think misleading sites are wrong , I think using a domain to to send anyone (misleadingly) to an adult site is wrong.

I also think this law (the way it is written) can too easily be abused.


Hey Beatz, answer your door..I hear someone knocking :laugh:

 

[adoptabledomains]

Although I agree the law is too vague and would be difficult to enforce outside the US, something does need to be done.

Some of the reasons this has come about is sites like whitehouse.com that attracts typos meant for whitehouse.gov. At one time NASA.com was doing the same thing. Even worse is when someone snaps up an expired school, museum, or church domain and directs it to porn. The person doing so knows what they are doing and should not be able to do so without punishment. A person could still use the expired domain for a PPC site or something, but socially unaccepable content shouldn't be allowed that missleads.

Yes, it is the parents responsibility to see what their kids can and can't access. However, unlike TV where there are only a few adult channels and they don't change daily, it's diffucult to block all the porn site and redirect sites even with the best tools. This is precisely why my kids don't have access to the internet yet, but I really think they are being deprived of a very useful tool because of the porn operators and predators out there. At least with TV's we have rating systems, censors to enforce, and v-chips. nothing as effective exists for the interenet.

In my opinion, all porn should restricted to specific IP number blocks so that no matter what the site name is, you could effectively block it if desired. The idea is good, but domain names are too fluid of a resource to police, and can come and go in a matter of hours. The .kids.us idea was a step in the right direction but it too, but if you restrict kids to only that they miss some very useful sites in the mainstream.

(stepping off of soap box)

 

[beatz]

Originally posted by adoptabledomains
..but socially unaccepable content shouldn't be allowed that missleads.

So who is to decide what exactly "unacceptable content" is?

You?

The president?

The public?

And for which society - US society, German society, Russian society etc.etc. ?

Remember - the internet belongs to all and .com/.net/.org can be registered everywhere, not just in the US.And for those registrations (including the ones that have been made by registrants outside the US) contracts and TOS of all sorts already exist so i can hardly imagine it would be easy to apply such a bill to already existing foreign registrations of com/net/org.

So there might be (in fact are) different society standards what might be acceptable or unacceptable content.

 

[DomainGoon]

Making Whitehouse.com into a porn site might very well be a political statement.

You can't tell the guy who owns Whitehouse.com what he can or cannot say on his site just because a kid might see the site and that kid's parents might not want him to see it. The content is legal under U.S. law, and therefore his speech is protected by the constitution.

What if he put graphic pictures of abortions as a protest against abortion?

What if he put up pictures of dead naked burned kids from the war in Iraq as a protest against the war?

What about Holocaust pictures?

What is porn to you may be politics to someone else.

 

[bidawinner]

Originally posted by DomainGoon
Making Whitehouse.com into a porn site might very well be a political statement.

You can't tell the guy who owns Whitehouse.com what he can or cannot say on his site just because a kid might see the site and that kid's parents might not want him to see it. The content is legal under U.S. law, and therefore his speech is protected by the constitution.

What if he put graphic pictures of abortions as a protest against abortion?

What if he put up pictures of dead naked burned kids from the war in Iraq as a protest against the war?

What about Holocaust pictures?

What is porn to you may be politics to someone else.

this is exactly the reason this law is coming about..because of this anarchist ..I can do what ever I want attitude..

 

[timechange.com]

What's that quote like....Democracy is to hear a knock on your door at 5am and it's the milkman

 

[DomainGoon]

Originally posted by bidawinner


this is exactly the reason this law is coming about..because of this anarchist ..I can do what ever I want attitude..

The U.S. Constitution says you can SAY whatever you want.

If you don't agree with the constitution, too bad.

 

[bidawinner]

Originally posted by DomainGoon


The U.S. Constitution says you can SAY whatever you want.

If you don't agree with the constitution, too bad.

See that's the problem..people think freedom of speech means there is no PRICE for that speech..

You can be sued and even thrown in jail for saying certain things..