[governance] Do We Need An Internet Zoning Law?

[Roland Perry]

In message 
<c0b014330808301142r7227f8ffw4afb2313222b7989 at mail.gmail.com>, at 
14:42:19 on Sat, 30 Aug 2008, Robert Guerra <lists at privaterra.info> 
writes
>Thought i'd share the following article that I just came across. It
>comes under the issue of protection of minors from "harmful" content,
>a topic that will be quite present at this year's IGF.
>
>As the article covers issues related to rights, ICANN, and internet
>policy - well, thought it would be good to forward to the list and
>seek comments from this community. It is an issue not to be dismissed,
>as there are quite a number of workshops and/or panels at this year's
>IGF on the topic.
>
>http://techdirt.com/articles/20080822/1902492075.shtml
>
>The proposal comes from a professor from Brigham Young University,
>Cheryl B. Preston, who's proposing the idea for an Internet Community
>Ports Act (ICPA), which would create special "zones" online where it
>would be okay for "adult" material to reside,

Is that "adult" as [se]X-rated, or merely "unsuitable for kids" (like 
horror, violence... despite everyone keeping their clothes on?)

>and other zones that would be kid friendly

Are these exclusively North American kids? What about the things that 
kids in other countries might want to be protected from (such as 
promotion of tobacco, sale of Nazi memorabilia etc)?

Many people also argue that it's parents' (and not publishers' or 
distributors') responsibility to control what their children have access 
to. Suitable tools are required, however.

Rather than a special zone for adults, most people propose a special 
zone for kids, and various sorts of walled gardens have been proposed 
for the best part of 15 years (MSN was going to one, but it never quite 
got the expected traction).

The only proposal that makes sense is for different communities to 
produce their own criteria for what's acceptable and what isn't, and 
then find someone to implement it for them. Which can be done "in the 
network" (hopefully quite locally) or in the user equipment.

There's not much point in debating, in a global forum, what might be 
"in" or "out" in any one particular country (getting a global standard 
is clearly a huge challenge). So that's only really of interest to 
people in each country (and there's a whole range of non-IGF-attending 
local stakeholders who will want to express a view within each country).

The problems arise when you don't fully trust the people making the 
"in/out" decisions on your behalf, which sounds like it might be a 
suitable topic for "best practice", bearing mind the chair's desire to 
avoid "beauty competitions".

(I speak in a personal capacity, as someone who helped set up the UK's 
first "Family friendly" ISP in 1994 [we had a restricted usenet feed, 
and a strict AUP for material hosted by customers] and nearly ten years 
now working with the IWF [the world's leading regulator for child abuse 
material]. I've also lived through the ICRA and "ratings" wars.)
-- 
Roland Perry
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