If you thought 2257 was bad ...

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Randall <rvh40 () insightbb com>
Date: July 22, 2005 3:40:35 PM EDT
To: Dave <dave () farber net>
Subject: If you thought 2257 was bad ...


https://www.ynot.com/modules.php? 
op=modload&name=News&file=news_article&sid=9597&mode=thread&order=0&thol 
d=0

http://tinyurl.com/dqgdo


Democrat Expected to Take Aim at Online Porn, Introduce 25% Tax on Adult
Website Sales by Connor Young  WASHINGTON, DC - A new bill that targets
online adult entertainment is making its way into Congress, YNOT has
learned. The Internet Safety and Child Protection Act of 2005, expected
to be introduced by Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) sometime in the
coming days, would tax adult websites at a whopping 25% while placing
new requirements for age verification on “regulated” websites and
billing companies. The Act appears to have been spurred by a July report
from an organization called Third Way. The Third Way report, which has
not yet been released, argues that adult websites do not do enough to
keep children away from adult content, and that many adult webmasters
specifically target children in their marketing.

In a discussion draft of the Act obtained by YNOT, which may see
alterations before the final bill is introduced, the Bill uses the child
protection angle to justify the new restrictions and the new tax. The
draft claims that the bill is intended “to protect children from
Internet pornography and support law enforcement and other efforts to
combat Internet and pornography-related crimes against children.”

A spokesperson for Senator Lincoln's office declined to comment
specifically about the Act itself, since it had not yet been intorduced,
but told YNOT that the Senator's motivations for supporting such
measures would not be political but rather solely in the interest of
child protection.

"When she does introduce this legislation, it's not going to revolve
around political reasons," he said, adding that Senator Lincoln was a
concerned parent herself.

The Act would have to clear Congress and be signed by President Bush
before it could become law. Legal challenges to the Act, if it were
passed, are also possible.

The Act begins by placing new age verification requirements on
“regulated pornographic” websites. These requirements include using
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) approved age verification software
packages that check the age of visitors before they are shown adult
content. The Act specifically requires that this age verification
process take place prior to the visitor being shown any “pornographic
material,” including materials in free areas of the website.

There would also be new restrictions placed on payment processors and
IPSPs. Under the Act, companies that process payments for adult sites
“shall only process age-verified” transactions. The restrictions would
apply to any “bank, credit card company, third-party merchant, Internet
Payment Service Provider, or business that performs financial
transactions for a regulated pornographic Web site…”

Enforcement of the Act would be handled by the FTC.

The Act’s definition of a “regulated pornographic website,” however, is
interesting in that it relies completely on 18 U.S.C. § 2257. The Act
would define a “regulated pornographic website” as “a person required to
maintain documents verifying the age of persons engaged in sexually
explicit conduct pursuant to section 2257(a) of title 18, United States
Code.”

Who actually falls under 2257 requirements is currently being disputed
in federal court. The Free Speech Coalition has challenged 2257 and its
requirements.

In addition to enacting age verification requirements, the Act also
calls for a staggering 25% tax on all sales made by sites that fall
under the Act. The funds collected from this tax would then be used to
fund various law enforcement initiatives, mostly aimed at protecting
children from harmful online activities.

Senator Lincoln, the expected lead sponsor of the Act, is an Honorary
Senate Chair for “Third Way,” an organization that, according to its
website, “develops policy and communications products to help senators
and other progressive leaders better advance their values in red states
and counties where progressive ideas have lost resonance.”

Third Way this month produced a “report” on internet pornography. The
report, obtained by YNOT, was titled “The Porn Standard: Children and
Pornography on the Internet,” and it claims that some adult website
operators purposefully market to children, and that the industry has
failed to make use of existing age verification software solutions to
screen out minors.

“Parents have a responsibility to supervise their kids,” report author
Shawn Barney of Third Way told YNOT, but added “[the internet] is a
particularly challenging medium for parents.”

The report’s claim that some adult sites specifically market to children
seems to be based on the long-defunct per-click affiliate program model,
which when used would pay affiliates based solely on the volume of
traffic sent rather than sales. The Third Way report does not seem to
recognize that few if any adult affiliate programs currently use a
per-click payout model, and that the model was largely abandoned by the
adult industry years ago.

The professional adult internet industry has long argued to lawmakers
that it does not want children visiting its websites, and that it does
not profit from sales of pornography to children. Sales on adult
websites rely on credit cards or other online payments, which children
know are easily discovered by parents. The per-click affiliate model was
not profitable for professional adult website operators largely due to
fraud, and was replaced by more progressive programs that would not
reward marketers for sending children to adult sites.

Asked if the report’s claims of adult content being marketed to children
were based on anything other than the per-click or per-impression
affiliate model, Barney told YNOT that it also relied on “common sense
online, most people’s experience online.”

The language of the Third Way report at times paints a fairly sinister
picture of adult website operators preying on children.

“Internet pornography has become a large and lucrative online industry,
and one that is successfully reaching a child audience,” the report
claims.

“Tragically, the exploitation of children by internet pornographers in
search of quick profits extends beyond just the sale of their product to
minors,” the report continues. “This report details the extent to which
a large and powerful internet pornography industry is influencing the
lives of children today … It also reveals some of the strategies that
certain internet pornographers are using to specifically target
children, as well as the disturbing prevalence with which sex crimes are
committed against children in the scramble to profit from the sale of
pornography images on the internet.”

YNOT asked Barney if Third Way had made any efforts to contact
representatives from the adult industry while researching its report,
and Barney told YNOT that it had not.

Barney also admitted that existing age verification software solutions
were not perfect options for keeping kids away from porn and could be
tricked by a determined child, but added that if they were used the
adult industry “could say that they didn’t have a better option.”

Connor Young is Editor-in-Chief of YNOT.
--
"We've got the hatemongers who literally hate this president, and that
is so wrong. . . . The people who hate George Bush hate him because he's
a follower of Jesus Christ, unashamedly says so and applies his faith in
his day-to-day operations." -- Rev. Jerry Falwell, on C-SPAN's
"Washington Journal"







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