Quentin

Senators Baucus and Pryor have reintroduced the Cyber Safety For Kids Act, which has been referred to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation for "debate" before possibly heading to the full Senate for a vote.

The text of the bill has not been published to the Library of Congress site yet, but according to the press conference held by Baucus and Pryor yesterday, the Act would:

* Require that the US Dept. of Commerce ?Develop an electronic tag for Web sites with sexually explicit adult material and would require those Web sites to use electronic tags when registering or renewing registration. Parents, teachers, librarians, etc. would then be able to set their Internet browsers on their computers to block Web sites with adult material electronic tags.?

* ?Make it mandatory for Web sites with adult material to have a clean homepage.?

* "Require Web sites with adult material to have visitors verify that they?re 18 years of age or older."

At their press conference, the Senators also stated that under the Act, the Commerce Dept would "issue civil penalties to Web sites with adult material if they fail to follow the guidelines? - which seems to suggest their would not be criminal liability for violating the law, but we won't know for sure until the full text of the bill is made available.

The full Baucus/Pryor press release can be found here.

- Q.

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Q. Boyer