Porn bill reins-in peer-to-peer firms
 

Porn bill reins-in peer-to-peer firms

In a crackdown on the spread of pornography among underage surfers, a bill introduced late last week in the US would require file-swapping companies, such as Kazaa, to get parental permission before allowing minors to use their services.

The bill, called the Protecting Children from Peer-to-Peer Pornography (P4) Act would require the Federal Trade Commission to regulate peer-to-peer networks and take steps to ensure that children aren't accidentally coming across porn.

While many people use services such as Kazaa for downloading music they have also become a very popular source of hardcore pornographic images and videos.

The bill's sponsors said as many as 40 per cent of all files traded on the networks are porn.

Republican sponsor Joe Pitts said in a statement: "Our legislation gives parents the tools they need to protect their children from pornography and threats to privacy posed by peer-to-peer file-trading networks. By working together to protect children, we are building a broad and bipartisan coalition."

The bill calls on the FTC to require peer-to-peer companies to get parental permission before minors use their services. It would also require peer-to-peer companies to honour the wishes of parents who have put a "do not install" beacon in their computers, indicating that they don't want file-swapping software on their children's machines.

However, such technology has yet to be developed, and it's unclear how such a beacon would work - a rare instance of legislation being one step ahead of technology.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/030728/36/e53j3.html