12 December
2002
Eversheds e80
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The e-news service from Eversheds - Business Lawyers in Europe
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Dot Kids Implementation
and Efficiency Act
On 4th December 2002, President Bush signed a bill for
the "Dot Kids
Implementation and Efficiency Act" which will create a .kids second
level
domain name.
The idea behind dot-kids was to provide a domain name
space which is safe
for children and free from adult material. However the Act only creates
a
.kids second level domain name for websites based in the USA - .kids.us.
Attempts to create a more simple .kids top-level domain which functions
in
the same manner as .com or .org were rejected by both the US Department
of Commerce and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
(ICANN). ICANN suggested that managing .kids as a top level domain would
be impractical. It highlighted certain problems associated with
administering the .kids domain such as deciding what material is safe,
what constitutes a minor and how to ensure that visitors to the domain
space are actually children. .kids will therefore only operate as a second
level domain name within .us.
Although being viewed as a compromise, .kids.us has been
welcomed by the
internet community as another attempt to make the internet child-friendly.
The new domain space will only contain material which is considered, by
an
independent board, to be appropriate for children under the age of
thirteen. In addition the Act will allow parents to restrict their
children's computers so that only dot-kids sites can be accessed.
Hyperlinks to outside websites can also be prohibited. Chat rooms and
instant messaging will only be permitted is they are certified as "safe".
"It will function much like the children's section of the library,
where
parents feel comfortable allowing their children to browse" said
President
Bush.
NeuStar Inc. the company which runs .us will be responsible
for operating
kids.us and it has been granted the primary responsibility of policing
the
new domain name, ensuring that the standards established by Congress are
being upheld. As President Bush hopes, "Every site designated .kids
will
be a safe zone for children."
The idea to introduce a child friendly playground on
the internet came
after the death of a Connecticut school girl whom police say was murdered
by a man whom she had met in an internet chat room. Given the increasing
use of the internet by children in Britain it may only be a matter of
time
we see the introduction of .kids.uk.
Paula Robinson
Eversheds
Tel: 0161 831 8128
Email: paularobinson@eversheds.com
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