FTC: Thumbs up to America's online child protection laws
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COPPA bracelet America's laws protecting children's privacy online are working just fine, according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). But just to make sure, it will slap violators with bigger fines.â¦
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Online video has grown up. Cue the lawyers.
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A bill that gives consumers added protections when they make Internet purchases is now law in New York State.
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Also: States stand up to cyberbullies. Read these stories and more from around the Web on News.com Extra.
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Moves to protect children from unscrupulous dealers in adoption.
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Parents can finally breathe easier, as this month, Mr. Ian McLellan, CEO of Safe Computer Kids, brought to the world's attention a revolutionary new cyber safety toolkit that allows parents to monitor their kids' online activity and translate their instant message acronym lingo.
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By SEAN MURPHY  OKLAHOMA CITY - Having already helped police target sexual predators online, Miss America Lauren Nelson now is teaming with a security software company to help educate parents and children about dangers on the Internet.
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By Randy Myers, Contra Costa Times, Walnut Creek, Calif.  May 29--In hopes of making the Internet a safer place for children, concerned parents tap into a multitude of resources.
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Justice Department attorneys, defending a law aimed at keeping online pornography from minors, argued that software filters often block valid sites &#151; on gay rights or sexual health, for example &#151; that teens might seek out.
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By Nora Froeschle, Tulsa World, Okla.  Mar. 6--Knowing what LMIRL means could help parents keep their children safe from online predators.
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(InfoWorld) - A lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) argued Monday that the government's defense of the controversial Child Online Protection Act (COPA) was inconsistent in defining what kind of online content is harmful to minors, and so the law should continue to remain unenforceable because it violates free speech. Chris Hansen, a staff attorney for the ACLU, said that witnesses in the government's case in support of COPA could not seem to agree on what kind of sexually explicit material or content that shows human nudity is offensive and what has artistic, scientific or political value. Because of this, COPA can be interpreted broadly and can be imposed upon legitimate Web sites such as Nerve.com, Salon.com and the Sexual Health Network, which all were named as co-plaintiffs in the case, the ACLU argued. Hansen made his arguments supporting why COPA is unconstitutional in a Philadelphia courtroom as part of closing arguments in ACLU v. Gonzalez, a four-week trial that wrapped up Monday. Hansen said that alternatives to a federal law -- such as content filters, parental supervision and education -- are effective in preventing children from being exposed to indecent and pornographic material online. He also argued that because COPA only protects content that is sent to the Web via HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) and not Web-based content in instant messages, VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) or content sent via FTP (File Transfer Protocol), it is too narrow to truly protect children from pornographic content online. In the law's defense, attorneys from the U.S. Department of Justice tried to poke holes in the ACLU's arguments, rejecting its claims that there are effective alternatives to COPA, such as parental monitoring and content filters, to protect children from harmful material online. "Single-parent households are common, as are places where two parents work full-time," said Joel McElvain, a Justice Department attorney. "It's nice to imagine every family can constantly keep in contact with their children's [Internet usage] but they need further help. COPA offers that help." McElvain also listed examples of sites that did not violate COPA that were blocked by well-known content filters. In this way, filters sometimes serve to block children from accessing helpful Web sites, thus "hindering children form learning about the world around them," he said. Justice Department lawyers also requested that Judge Lowell A. Reed Jr., who is hearing the case, rule that the ACLU and several of its co-plaintiffs in the case -- Free Speech Media, Philadelphia Gay News, Powell's Bookstores, Electronic Frontier Foundation and American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression -- have no legal standing in the case because their members were not called to testify about how COPA affected them. If Reed makes that decision, the ACLU's entire case would be irrelevant. The trial in Philadelphia was the culmination of eight years of litigation by the ACLU against COPA, which was signed into law in 1998. The law can impose severe criminal and civil penalties -- including stiff fines -- on individuals that put up content on the Web that the government considers harmful to minors. Previously, a federal district court in Philadelphia and a federal appeals court found COPA unconstitutional, and in 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld this ban on enforcing COPA. However, the Supreme Court also returned the ACLU's case against it to a Pennsylvania district court for a trial to see whether there are effective ways to keep children safe online that infringe upon speech less than COPA's criminal penalties. The deadline for the parties in ACLU v. Gonzalez to submit any more materials for the discovery phase is Dec. 7. The judge is expected to rule by early next year.
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VeriSign Inc.  and a children's safety group unveiled a new technology on Thursday that they said would make it easier for children to avoid child predators online.
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Relying on a law against advertising child porn, federal authorities win a mandatory 15-year sentence against a Kazaa user for sharing kid porn online. One official describes the crackdown as an "innovative" use of the law, in a case now moving to the U.S. Supreme Court.
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VeriSign and a children&#39;s safety group unveiled a new technology on Thursday that they said would make it easier for children to avoid child predators online.
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More than half of U.S. residents want the government to regulate Internet video in some way, according to a poll released Wednesday.Twenty-nine percent of those surveyed said Internet video should be regulated just like television content, and another 24 percent said the U.S. government should institute an online rating system similar to the one used by the movie industry, according to the poll, commissioned by 463 Communications, a Washington, D.C., public relations firm that specializes in high-tech issues.Only 36 percent of respondents agreed that government regulation of Internet video would raise constitutional issues. &quot;I was really shocked that people look at the Internet the same way they look at TV,&quot; said Tom Galvin, a partner at 463. &quot;People see [online video] as spiraling out of control, and they want government to do something about it.&quot;Galvin called that attitude &quot;a bit scary.&quot;Only 33 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds supported government regulations of video content, while 72 percent of those over 70 years of age did.The question about government regulation was one of several that&#160;463 asked in its poll about Internet attitudes, conducted by Zogby International. The two companies work together on periodic polls asking &quot;quirky&quot; questions about technology and the Internet, Galvin said.Only 11 percent of the survey respondents said they would want to have a device to access the Internet implanted in their brains. Perhaps not surprisingly, more men than women wanted that device.However, nearly one in five of those responding would be fine with inserting a tracking chip into a child 13 or younger to help track them if they were lost, abducted, or &quot;just tend not to be where they are supposed to be,&quot; 463 said. There was no difference in opinion among parents who had younger children and those who did not.The poll also tackled religion, with few of the respondents saying they thought the Internet has had an effect on their relationship with God. Ten percent said it made them closer to God, while 6 percent said it made them more distant. Those numbers were about double for people who called themselves &quot;born again.&quot;Galvin was surprised those numbers were so low, with all of the information about religion online and all the potential temptations there as well. &quot;It&#39;s kind of the vice and virtue part of it,&quot; he said.Other poll results:-- Twenty-four percent of U.S. residents said the Internet can serve as a substitute for a spouse or other significant relationship.-- More than one in four respondents had a social-networking profile on sites such as MySpace or Facebook. And 78 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds had a social-networking profile.-- Apple&#39;s new iPhone is pretty sexy -- 6 percent of respondents listed it as&#160;sexiest among a list of celebrities. But actors Halle Berry, Scarlett Johansson, and Patrick Dempsey all beat the iPhone on the sexy scale. New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter tied the iPhone.-- More than one in five respondents said they&#39;d be willing to change their name and sell their old one to someone else for $100,000.The poll of more than 9,500 U.S. adults was done in early October.
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Policy to be implemented this month aims to protect children from violence and sexual content
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As if porn sites and pedophiles in chat rooms weren&#039;t frustrating enough for parents whose children use the Internet, now online postings of amateur video featuring skin and violence are raising concerns. The explosion in online video-sharing sites, where clips of any nature can be easily uploaded for the world to see, has become the latest challenge for parents trying to protect their children and for Web sites coping with obscene submittals.