Comments on: Son of COPA?: H.R. 4059, “The Online Age Verification and Child Safety Act”

By: joanirvine

joanirvine — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:26:19 +0000

Adam did an excellent job in this article explaining why mandatory age verification is not only unnecessary, but could potentially be dangerous to online child safety

His last paragraph provided a good summary: "I would hope that Mr. Stupak and other lawmakers would heed the warnings about mandatory age verification that these task forces issued. …, remember that every dollar spent litigating another misguided attempt to mandate online age verification is another dollar that could be spent on education and empowerment solutions or other law enforcement strategies, all of which could be put in place immediately to make our kids safer online."

ASACP proved with the overwhelming success of its Restricted to Adults – RTA meta-tag label that industry self-regulation is the key (www.rtalabel.org). If parents use one of the many available parental control systems, children would automatically be blocked from unknowingly accessing much of the age-restricted adult content online.

Joan Irvine
CEO
Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection (ASACP)

By: Joan Irvine

Joan Irvine — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:06:35 +0000

By: joanirvine

joanirvine — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:26:19 +0000

By: Joan Irvine

Joan Irvine — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:06:35 +0000

By: Adam Marcus

Adam Marcus — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:53:45 +0000

This bill has some serious drafting errors. The bill defines an “operator” as anyone who “provides products or services online” whose sale is limited by applicable law to persons over the age of 18 or with regard to alcohol, over the age of 21.” It’s primary focus is on operators of pornographic websites, but the bill defines a “pornographic web site” as any PERSON who produces “visual depictions” of “actual sexually explicit conduct.”

What is clear is that this bill assumes that the online sale of products and services which are restricted to those over the age of 18 is something only handled by big businesses. But what about the thousands of small businesses and individuals legally selling age-restricted products (e.g. fireworks, tobacco, alcohol, knives, etc.) through the Internet? Section 103(b) doesn’t just apply to people who run their own websites and doesn’t just apply to pornography—it can apply to anything that states put an age restriction on. This section prohibits financial institutions from processing transactions for “Internet sales” (a term not defined in the bill) unless the “operator” submits a certification claiming that they’re in compliance with this new law. This might even been seen as applying to one person sending a friend some money via PayPal because the friend paid for a round of beers the previous evening.

So the real take-away is simply that there will be one more form that people need to fill out and sign when opening any sort of bank account that can handle online payments. This will likely do nothing to restrict minors from buying age-restricted products via the Internet, but it may impose a burden on small business owners and individuals. And as Adam explains in this post, even if people want to fully comply with the law, this bill gives no guidance as to how they’re supposed to verify the identity of buyers. Maybe that’s because the experts agree that there is no good way to verify one’s identity online. As the saying goes, on the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.