Gonzales calls for mandatory web labeling law

by David Evans on April 21, 2006 in Legal

Declan McCullagh at CNET says:

Web site operators posting sexually explicit information must place official government warning labels on their pages or risk being imprisoned for up to five years, the Bush administration proposed Thursday.

The Bush administration’s proposal would require commercial Web sites to place “marks and notices” to be devised by the Federal Trade Commission on each sexually explicit page.

Replace Bush with Herb Vest and this sounds quite familiar to the dating site legislation that has been slowly making it’s way through the courts, and almost as untenable.

Every web page with pr0n on it labeled, take about unenforceable. Dems tried this with PICS in the mid-90’s, at least that was based on browser filters and not FCC-mandated badges on every page. Doesn’t the GOP know about meta-tags?

The net is too large, borderless and out of control for this to ever happen. Addressing “lascivious exhibition of the genitals” is not going to raise approval ratings either. Sounds like this is all about mandatory data retention regimes, which is related to the Patriot Act. “Lets force ISP’s to retain and store user data so we can track people illegally under the auspices of fighting pr0n.”

In January, the FBI told a senate panel Thursday that no more new laws are needed to deal with online child pornography.

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