Proposed US site-labeling law

The bill’s sponsors say it would “clean up the Internet for children,” CNET reports. Sens. Max Baucus of Montana and Mark Pryor of Arkansas introduced legislation today that says operators of Web sites content that’s “harmful to minors” must label their sites as such and register in a national directory or be fined, according CNET. It’s not the first legislation of its kind. “The current Democratic proposal - like the one that a Republican-dominated Senate committee approved last summer - is strikingly similar to the one floated over a decade ago.” CNET says one difference, though, is that the law proposed in ’96 referred to “indecent” material. This one uses the phrase “harmful to minors,” which it defines as “any type of material that appeals to the prurient interest by depicting or describing an actual or simulated sex act - and lacks serious scientific, literary, artistic or political values for minors.” But last month a federal judge ruled that even sex ed sites could be deemed “harmful to minors,” which could make restrictions on them unconstitutional. It appears we have yet another proposed Net-safety law on constitutionally slippery ground. It would also fail to have much impact on all those X-rated (or sex-education) sites based in other countries.