** Continued From: 4472: What You Need to Know!
"I would think that even as a newbie adult webmaster, you know better than to buy a domain name like kidsclickhere.com in order to serve a bunch of smut."
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As I wrote in my article "4472: What You Need to Know", HR 4472 is titled the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act. I also explained that adult webmasters have no problem with laws protecting children. We are adults, providing entertainment for adults. We are not child pornographers. Our problems come from the fact that some of the legislation intended to protect children is instead, designed to punish adult webmasters. In that aforementioned article, I showed you a particular part of HR 4472 that did just that. Tucked inside this 66 page document were sections that re-wrote the record-keeping requirements we all know as Title 18 2257 of US Code.
But wait...there’s more.
If you read HR 4472, you’ll discover Section 703: DECEPTION BY EMBEDDED WORDS OR IMAGES. Here’s the entire text of that section for your
reading pleasure:
(a) In General- Chapter 110 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by inserting after section 2252B the following:
`Sec. 2252C. Misleading words or digital images on the Internet`(a) In General- Whoever knowingly embeds words or digital images into the source code of a website with the intent to deceive a person
into viewing material constituting obscenity shall be fined under this title and imprisoned for not more than 10 years.
`(b) Minors- Whoever knowingly embeds words or digital images into the source code of a website with the intent to deceive a minor into viewing material harmful to minors on the Internet shall be fined
under this title and imprisoned for not more than 20 years.
`(c) Construction- For the purposes of this section, a word or digital image that clearly indicates the sexual content of the site, such as `sex' or `porn', is not misleading.
`(d) Definitions- As used in this section--
`(1) the terms `material that is harmful to minors' and `sex' have the meaning given such terms in section 2252B; and
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`(2) the term `source code' means the combination of text and other characters comprising the content, both viewable and nonviewable, of a web page, including any website publishing language,
programming language, protocol or functional content, as well as any successor languages or protocols.'.
(b) Table of Sections- The table of sections for chapter 110 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by inserting after the item relating to section 2252B the following:
`2252C. Misleading words or digital images on the Internet.'.
Kind of vague isn’t it? What exactly is this a law against? Does it mean a webmaster gets put in jail for ten years if his keywords say Google but his website shows bukkake? Is the webmaster in violation if his front page shows pics of happy, furry kitties but then re-directs to a site full of anal fisting after five seconds? How is this law going to protect children any better than the Truth in Domain Names Act? Passed a few years ago?
I would think that even as a newbie adult webmaster, you know better than to buy a domain name like "kidsclickhere.com" in order to serve a bunch of smut. I would think that most of you are smart enough to leave any mainstream brand names off of your sites. And what’s the deal about misleading adults? Why is that language added to a law intended to protect children?
As I suggested in the previous article, read HR 4472. You can find the full text if you visit http://thomas.loc.gov. Type HR 4472 and click
the radio button next to the option Search by Bill Number. Enjoy all 66 pages. If you want some extra fun, show it to your favorite lawyer and see if he or she can makes sense out of section 703.
I wish this was funny but the truth is, 20 years in jail is no joke. And I have a sinking suspicion that we adult webmasters are the ones this little bit of law is gunning for. I’ve seen others comment that Section 703 of HR 4472 is totally unconstitutional. I hope so. I hope we don’t have to find out the hard way.