U.S. Sens. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., and Max Baucus, D-Mont., introduced the bill April 11, which, they said, would help protect children from online pornography through a series of website requirements, including age verification at the home page and a mandatory content tag assigned by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).
The act states that no later than 90 days after its enactment — should it pass — the NTIA will develop a common content description tag that, "(1) will provide consumers with advance warning and information about the content of any website that contains material that is harmful to minors; (2) will allow consumers, based on such tag, to block or filter access to, and display of, any website that contains material that is harmful to minors; and (3) is technologically capable of being embedded into the source code [of] a website."
The act also states that all operators of websites containing obscene content provide to ICANN their names, their sites' URLs, their IP addresses and the content description tag assigned to them.
As defined in the text, content that is harmful to minors is defined as any material that a "reasonable person" would find is designed to appeal to "the prurient interest," depicts or describes offensive material with respect to minors, any show of genitals or sexual acts — both simulated and explicit, and any material that lacks "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors."
The complete text of the Cyber Safety for Kids Act of 2007 is available at Thomas.loc.gov.
