This is great, but I wonder how long it will be before ISPs and web hosting providers are considered liable if a kid lies about his/hee age, reasoning that the liar is underage and isn't considered responsible for him/herself. It's still up to parents to make sure that their kids are surfing the Internet responsibly, but I don't know that the law assumes this in order to protect ISPs. -rb
From: Robert Cannon <rmcannon@mail.com> To: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: New Federal Law (COPPA) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2000 09:48:06 -0400 (EDT)
One website that collects personal data had a field for Date of Birth. If you entered a DOB that meant that you were underaged, the webpage refused to go further. Thus, the webpage could collect the data where individual was of legal age but would just automatically refuse if under age. This doesnt seem too hard.
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Ron Buchalski Sent: Monday, April 24, 2000 7:04 AM
It's still up to parents to make sure that their kids are surfing the Internet responsibly, but I don't know that the law assumes this in order to protect ISPs.
From what I've been reading, there is no such assumption. Add to this the inability to authenticate anyone's identity and we have a small problem. ISPs aren't liable unless their web-hosting customers setup something risque. Then, it appears to be an issue of whether the ISP actually has control of the host that is running the material. This may be another nail in the coffin for the web-hosting business.
It appears that we have two camps, those wanting authentication and those who resist the idea. COPPA appears to come from the authentication camp, as a whip to "encourage" the resistors to come up with a means to authenticate the users. <soapbox> Also, one might note that the US legal system has been on an anti-parent binge for decades. Witness the unmitigated gall of a US Judge, in FLA, granting custody, of a six-year old boy, to a distant relative, rather than the actual biological father, based on political agenda. Anyone who has been through a custody battle can atest to this; That "for the good of the child" does NOT mean anything related to decency or parental rights. The USG has been setting itself over parental rights for a long time. Therefore, anything parents might agree to can be over-ridden by the do-goodniks in USG social services departments. COPPA is a part of this over-all agenda. <\soapbox>
participants (2)
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Roeland Meyer (E-mail) -
Ron Buchalski