[governance] Do We Need An Internet Zoning Law?

[Jeffrey A. Williams]

Roland and all,

  Excellent remarks in response.  I agree with your sentiments
fully.

  I fear that once we consider "Zoning" as a means to manage content
or DN's/web sites, many other types of content will be adversely
effected for many different reasons that may or may not be universally
publically excepted.

Roland Perry wrote:

> 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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Regards,

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