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The Internet Your Rights Online

Should Innocently-Named Porn Sites Be Illegal? 165

Posted by timothy from the sights-vs-sites dept.
Folic_Acid writes "CNET News.com's Declan McCullagh is reporting that the U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on an amendment to a bill dealing with child abduction that would make it a crime to use an innocent-sounding domain name to drive traffic to a porn website." I can't wait to see the counter-bill that would illegalize naughty, filthy names that lead only to inoccuous content.
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Should Innocently-Named Porn Sites Be Illegal? More

Should Innocently-Named Porn Sites Be Illegal?

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  • It also attempts to pass a law that would again ban "virtual child porn". This was struck down by the supreme court in the past, I don't know what makes them think it will stick this time. The supreme court really tore into it previously, basically calling it a thoughtcrime law.

    • Re:There's more (Score:2, Insightful)

      by aoteoroa ( 596031 )

      From the article:

      The current proposal would ban the creation or possession of "a digital image, computer image, or computer-generated image" that is "indistinguishable" from a real minor.

      I support the protection of children, and banning real child porn BUT this proposal which bans pictures of anyone who looks like a minor is ridiculous. Some 16 year old girls look 36, and some 25 year old girls look like they are 15.

      The bill is too subjective to be fair, or useful. If someone takes pictures of a mi

    • Does this mean I can't open up my most recent venture, www.hairypotter.com ?
    • Could wind up passing, given the decidedly conservative nature of the Supreme Court and the current administration now. After all, it's almost a "thoughtcrime" to be opposed to the war right now.
  • Get your laws away from the net

  • Well... (Score:3, Funny)

    by addaon ( 41825 ) <addaon+slashdot.gmail@com> on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @05:03PM (#5600041)
    At least whitehouse.com doesn't have to worry!
  • I read somewhere that they were going to have a .sex or .xxx top level domain to indicate that the site is a porn site...
    • I have often wondered why they do not do this, and then pass a law that all porn sites must be in .porn. This would make it easier to find porn for those who want to, and easier to avoid it for those that don't.

      • I'm not advocating anything, but what about sites that consider themselves artistic rather than raw?

        Given, it's easier to draw the line as some points, but what about where the line is gray? Does display of nipples automatically engage the adult high-level requirement?

      • There is already one out there. It's called .cx

        ;)
      • Oh damn it, not this tripe again.
        The largest problem with this idea, amongst a great great many others, is the subjectivity of the issue. If you can get a half dozen randomly selected people, representing a decent demographic cross section, to agree on where to draw the line, I'll give you 5 bucks.

        Does intercourse shots constitue pr0nography? How about just nude shots? Just shots of a topless woman? what if it's on a site discussing self exams for breast cancer? but hey, it's still a nipple right? Site

        • I think that generally speaking, it's pretty obvious when you come to a porn site. Porn sites generally have one or more of the following features:

          1. Javascript code that activates when you try to leave the page. See number 2.
          2. Javascript code that activates when you try to leave the page. See number 1.
          3. Less than 2K of text content.
          4. No less than 5 animated images, usually ads.
          5. One or more of the following words:
            • free
            • trial
            • credit card
            • lesbian
            • xxx
            • adult
          6. And finally, naked people on the front page.

  • I hate to be so bloody liberal but... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by GreyWolf3000 ( 468618 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @05:10PM (#5600090) Journal
    ...I think this is ridiculous.

    Smut shops have always hung huge lit signs that say "News." This isn't exactly the same as a pr0n store called "toys for kids," bt the same kind of thing.

    A businessman has the right to call his business whatever he chooses.

    • A businessman has the right to call his business whatever he chooses.

      Oh really? What if a businessman decided to name his business "Microsoft"? Or what about "Ford Motor Corporation"? Obviously, you can't use the name of another business for the purposes of your own.

      Now that we've established the precident of limiting business names, let's go one step further. Should a business be allowed to use false statements to entice people to visit their premises? Can a grocery store advertise "New BMWs for onl
      • Trademark infringement falls outside of the scope of the argument; the corporate names already exist, therefore they're viable and legal business names. Likewise, false advertising falls under a completely different category of discussion; advertisements are not business names.

        If we were to grant the supposition that business names should be somehow limited, the only way to even open the door to such legislation without inviting a first amendment challenge (and it would certainly fail such a challenge, any
        • If that were the case, then all business names would have to accurately reflect the main business of a corporation, would it not?

          No. The statement that "no business name should mislead customers into thinking it's something else" does not translate into the statement that "all business names must be unambiguously clear". I do not make the claim that all business names must accurately describe the nature of the business. I am making the claim that the business name must not mislead customers in order to
      • Chossing a name is not entirely a matter for advertising. It often is, and often is not.

        Furthurmore, suppose we *do* allow companies to call themselves whaqtever we want, and we get a grocery store who's name advertises cheap sports cars. What do you think will happen if we allow this? Do you think the store will last five seconds in business that way? Of course not! You're saying "you can't call your business something misleading," but I think that calling your business something misleading equals ba

    • Smut shops have always hung huge lit signs that say "News."

      That's not intended to deceive. It's there, because "Nudes" would not be very tasteful and the city (usually) will not allow that. In some sense it's a well-known code, a euphemism, to say "News". If the sign said, "Beer" or worse "Candy", that would be a better analogy.

      Before you attack me, I think any such law would be ruled too vague by the courts.

    • Really? How strange. Porn shops in Australia have signs like 'Adult entertainment' or 'XXXX' or 'Sex toys'. If a shop has a sign saying 'News', it probably sells newspapers and magazines.
  • ... illegalize naughty, filthy names that lead only to inoccuous content ...

    There was a "bird watching" site with the domain name "nice-tits.org" (its down now). It wasn't really a bird watching site, but funny none-the-less.
    • Bird watching could be English slang for girl watching and tit is the name of an actual bird, of the kind with wings, feathers, and the ability to fly, so what is or isn't an innocent sounding name or what is or isn't a naughty sounding name is even more subjective a judgement than what is or is not pornography or obscenity or whatever term is used for whatever it is to which some politician thinks you need to be denied access or from which they think you need to be protected.

      In other, fewer, words, it's ho

  • ...is because they apparently believe they derive a lot of new business by tricking people into their sites through innocent-sounding names, typosquatting and other devious tricks. Look at porn spam, which is now starting to avoid all the keywords that filters would use to pick them out. This kind of predatory marketing is particularly odious because it affects people (like me) who would never willing go to these sites and has no way of discriminating against children, whom even the most hard-core porn ad

    • If I had a brick-and-mortar store called "Freddie's Fuzzie Kitties" and people walked in to find a hardcore porn store, it would be closed in 10 minutes, and rightly so.

      Unless the store did in fact sell "Fuzzie Kitties". The exact meaning thereof is left as an exercise for the reader...

      More to the point though, most brick-and-mortar porn shops do have fairly innocuous names. Usually they're billed as some sort of video store and have only a small sign stating "Adult Novelties" near the door. The same

    • I remember going to the site www.gamefaq.com to get a walkthrough for a videogame. Imagine my surprise when I realized that the site I was really looking for was www.gamefaqs.com, and the former was a porn site with incredibly annoying and unstoppable pop-ups of more porn sites. (gamefaqs has since obtained the typo domain, so it is not an issue anymore).

      Although, to use Frank Zappa's words, this bill seems to be trying to cure dandruff with decapitation, I can understand the frustration that leads to this

    • If I had a brick-and-mortar store called "Freddie's Fuzzie Kitties" and people walked in to find a hardcore porn store, it would be closed in 10 minutes, and rightly so.

      Maybe I'm a bit naive, but I find it hard to believe that there are laws on the books that would allow police to close down an establishment solely based on the premise that the name is deceptive. Please, someone, tell me this isn't so.

      I understand your frustration about children being exposed to smut. And you're probably correct that

    • In Houston we had a store located on a major commercial street (Westheimer) that was called "Cindy's Toy Box."

      Sounds innocent enough, but when you walked inside there were a large assortment of Cindy's (SEX) toys prominently arrayed for all to see. You see, the store was a shop that sold sex accesories, paraphenalia, and such.

      Surprisingly, the sign stayed the same for almost 6 months (maybe a little longer! Can't exactly remember). Eventually it was changed to reflect the type of store it is more accur
  • Every time I read about crappy US laws it's because it's some idiocy attached to an existing bill, or a rider to something ... because it couldn't get passed on its own.

    Why the hell is this allowed? Why should things that have nothing to do with the original bill be included in a vote to pass it into law? And why are laws often voted on without representatives even reading the bill?

    It is completely ridiculous.

    Here in Australia *every* proposed piece of legislation must be considered and debated *on its o
    • Well, one of the items some States in the US has for it's governors is a line item veto. So basicly the governor can sign off on the main portion and veto the extra crap. This was talked about, at one time, for the president to stop this paticular problem...but has not happend. If it did then it would be pointless to add the extras because they would be dropped more than accepted.

      Of course this isn't going to happen any time soon.

      • This was talked about, at one time, for the president to stop this paticular problem...but has not happend. If it did then it would be pointless to add the extras because they would be dropped more than accepted.

        The line item veto was enacted by congress (amazingly) in 1996, and was used by clinton 82 times on 11 bills to save 2 billion dollars over the course of the year before it was declared unconstitutional. More info here [cato.org], or through your friendly google affiliate.
      • "Well, one of the items some States in the US has for it's governors is a line item veto. So basicly the governor can sign off on the main portion and veto the extra crap. This was talked about, at one time, for the president to stop this paticular problem...but has not happend."

        Line Item Veto at the Presidential level was declared Unconstitutional, so it will never happen.
    • Every proposed piece of legislation must receive *three* full readings out loud *in parliament* before it can be voted on and passed through to the upper house.

      Good luck finding 3 US congressmen who can read.

    • "Why the hell is this allowed? Why should things that have nothing to do with the original bill be included in a vote to pass it into law? And why are laws often voted on without representatives even reading the bill?"

      YES! YES! A THOUSAND TIMES YES! I have been saying that same damn thing for over 2 years now, I've written about it, I've suggested legislation to Congress, The Pres, and anyone else who would listen, and you know what? It fails. Why? Porkbarrel politics. See that's where these people make t
  • Should doggie-style.com be a pet hairdressing shop portal or a site about people's favorite position?

  • Strangely, I don't find this a problem (Score:3, Insightful)

    by BranMan ( 29917 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @05:34PM (#5600270)
    Provided that the ammendment is very specifically worded to include tests such other laws have - like would a "reasonable, average person expect to find pronography at a sight with this name" - then I'd have no problem with it.

    I can see a really strong argument that such as misleading site name is fraud in a sense - deliberately taking someone somewhere they don't want to go. How this is supposed to make such as site more profitable is beyond me. Kind of like how bait-and-switch is illegal for stores, bait-and-switch in website names can arguably be made illegal as well.
    • My site's URL is "ubernostrum.dyndns.org"; I am neither an organization nor is my actual name "ubernostrum"; am I committing fraud by misleading people who are really looking for information on ubernostrum?

      Is Geocities committing fraud? I was looking for information on geologically-interesting cities, and they misled me -- here it's actually a place where you can get a free website.

      Frankly, the domain name system isn't perfect; domain names get assigned to things that have nothing to do with the actual n

  • I remember a few years back, I mistakenly typed www.gamefaq.com for www.gamefaqs.com. I ended up looking at a deviant porn site that I sure as hell wouldn't want my kids to be looking at. When gamefaqs.com took over that domain, I was somewhat relieved.

    I do believe there has to be some degree of control for things like this, but I don't trust the bureaucrats to get it right either.

    It's not easy to just arbitarily decide which names are "innocent sounding" and thus can't be used for a porn site and whi
    • I remember one time I clicked on a link to an innocnet looking article in a Linux friendly news site.

      I was redirected to a domain called "goat.se" or something or other.

      After replcing my eyeballs I have taken up a crusade to stop this type of activity on the net. No one should have to bathe in holy water and take antipsychotic drugs just because they want to be well informed about the news.
      • ...I have taken up a crusade to stop this type of activity on the net. No one should have to bathe in holy water and take antipsychotic drugs just because they want to be well informed about the news...

        There's a group at Carnegie Mellon working on something to kill the trolls who post disturbing links like that goat.se thing. Basically it's a collaborative filter, where if you see something truly unfit for a set of normal eyeballs you flag it and after a certain number of flags by different users, the fi
    • If you let your kids use the Internet unsupervised, the fault is yours. Because the Internet is international and national values as to what is appropriate for children vary, schemes like this are doomed to failure.

      I'm not trying to call the author a bad parrent, but the Internet is not a baby-sitter....

      It's like letting your kid run wild in the largest bookstore on the planet, knowing full well that innapropriate material is available.

      That said, I'd welcome a .kids TLD and browser settings that lock th
  • So why don't they just have a .porn created and force porn sites to use that. Ok, not an idea that will make everyone happy, but at least you would know where your going if you use it.

    Just a thought.

    • What about art? What about stuff like Cinemax movies that at least try to have a plot mixed in with the soft core fake porn? Where's the line? Is this an International domain? If so, then who does enforcement? What if .cx decides they don't want to lose the goatse revenue stream and decides not to participate? Are we going to send in the military to force them to not host porn?
    • Wrong idea - you don't want to erect artificial partitions between adults. What I consider fairly innocent may shock you, and vice versa, and the "compromise" invariably leaves the "mainstream" stuff incredibly banal while marginalizing even mildly provocative stuff.

      I remember a good example of this years ago. Newsweek decided to put an artistic nude on its front cover for a story on the arts, and a lot of people were outraged at it. Meanwhile far more people were shocked at these knuckle-walkers gettin

  • What's an innocent name? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by redelm ( 54142 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @05:40PM (#5600337) Homepage
    ... certainly not The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Av, Wash DC. For all I know, there is some wholesome local brothel using that name :)

    More to the point, why criminalise something? Next they'll criminalise other information they find undesirable. To stop it, all the USgovt need do is register some trademarks and defend them. Furthermore, I believe the US & states attorneys can sue for trademark infringement even without the involvement of the trademark owner [consumer protection].

  • This is where you lose us. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Fished ( 574624 ) <amphigory@gmail . c om> on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @05:47PM (#5600400)
    Issues like this are where the rabid "free speech at any price" crowd lose the rest of the country.

    The bottom line is that there are many porn sites out there that *deliberately* seek to attract people who were not seeking porn. The most notable example, of course, is "whitehouse.com". Ultimately, this is a truth in advertising issue: if I open a can that says "peanuts", it should contain peanuts. If I order a "real, fully functional sailboat" it shouldn't be six inches high. And, in the world of information, if I buy a magazine entitled "Home Wine Making", it should contain information on wine making. Imagine if it were a tract against drinking from some benighted fundamentalists? You'd be pissed, wouldn't you? You'd want your money back, wouldn't you?

    The problem, of course, with domain-name-spamming, is that once I've given you my eyeballs, I can't take them back. There is no way for me to demand a refund. Furthermore, these sites are often deliberately deceptive. "Whitehouse.com" was not founded at that address because he thought it would be a good way to found his business: it was founded because he wanted to trick people who would otherwise not want to view his warez into viewing them. This is false and deceptive, and is nowhere near legitimate free speech. Why don't you focus your energy on something that matters?

    (And, please, spare me the slippery slope conspiracy theories.)

    • I'm very skeptical of this sort of thing, and believe this particular effort should be discarded as unenforceable subjective paternalistic hogwash. Much as I despise filters, they and other forms of self-help are preferable to government fumbling. Imagine trying to determine the typographical penumbra of legit URL's. (I just hit googl and was irritated to hit a bogus site, period.) Most of us couldn't do a good job of it and I'm sure the government can't.

      However, some kinds of speech are illegal, such
      • I often see this attitude from techies ... you have to understand that the law has no problem dealing with subjective realities and inductive reasoning. In fact, the law is founded on both. Very often, the law has to make very subjective judgments regarding intent, etc. and that's OK.

        And, yes, deception *should* be illegal. In fact, it's always been illegal in many contexts -- they call them "cons". Why shouldn't it be illegal here?

    • "Whitehouse.com" was not founded at that address because he thought it would be a good way to found his business: it was founded because he wanted to trick people who would otherwise not want to view his warez into viewing them

      Firstly, I completely agree with your position - the sort of domain spamming under discussion is sick, illegitimate and inexcusable. There are dozens, if not hundreds of examples, and they soil and degrade the internet as a whole.

      However, with specific regard to Whitehouse.com, you
    • That's why the US has specific false advertising laws...

      Why should there be a specific internet law for something that's already illegal? Why should there be a specific porn law for something that's already illegal?
    • This is false and deceptive, and is nowhere near legitimate free speech.

      The whole point of the 1st amendment is to protect speech others may not find 'legitimate'. Repeat after me: popular speech doesn't need to be protected! And flase and deceptive are hardly relevant here since, as another poster pointed out, you don't pay *anything* to stumble onto a site. OK, 5 seconds of your life, then you learn to use a search engine and not just type 'common-word-or-brand' into the location bar because it's not 1

  • Why is porn so special? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Muggins the Mad ( 27719 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @06:04PM (#5600546)

    I'm having trouble understanding why there seem to be seperate laws and exceptions being proposed for porn.

    I don't find porn sites particularly offensive. What I do find offensive is landing on religious sites using deceptive names. Or domain squatters. Especially domain squatters.

    Why the focus on porn? Why are porn merchants any different from other merchants? I find many cosmetic company pages pretty darn nasty. Church pages... don't get me started...

    What *should* one expect to find at www.cats.com ? Why is that ok and www.pussy.com not ?

    - MugginsM
    • I don't think it's porn so much, as it is porn targeted to attract kids. I remember when whitehouse.com was truely a parody site only, now it really is just porn.

      In the early internet days, (I work in schools) I was in a lab randomly checking for where kids have been. I would open the .Dat file from netscape and search for key words like sex, etc. When I got a hit I would trace it back to the web site. So on this day I got a hit, but when I traced it back it was a site for cheat codes. No big deal I
    • I would have rated you +1 funny if I had the points.

      The reason that porn is so special is that it is a controlled visual stimulus. In other words, you have to be a certain age to buy it in the USA. Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler, etc. cannot be purchased at the corner store by those under the age of 18/21 depending.

      In other countries this may not be so. I mean, maybe elementary children in Europe can buy hardcore-fisting-scat mags at the school store. However, in the USA we have laws about this type of m
  • For example, any site that registers slash.com, slashdo.org, lashdot.org, or any variant thereof should have a valid use for that name. I'm personally somewhat offended by the people who register porn names as a trivial misspelling of a popular site, but I am equally offended when brought to a site such as domaincollection.com (who owns the lashdot.org and com domains) or that horrible "SEARCH THE INTERNET!" page at www.yaho.com.

    Anywhere else this would be considered a misleading business practice. MacDo
    • Anywhere else this would be considered a misleading business practice. MacDowells serving Big Mic's? yaho.com running a search engine? Revoke their business licences, or throw the creeps in jail. This isn't a bad practice of porn sites, this is a bad practice.

      You see, that's a large part of the problem: you don't need a business licence to register and run a domain name.

  • A Hot, Slippery Topic (Score:5, Funny)

    by jvmatthe ( 116058 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @06:22PM (#5600685) Homepage
    We are, indeed, all tied up by our very own language in this matter. It would be unwise to let Congress ram a bill down our throats that satisfies many people, I'd argue passionately that a long, hard battle over the real issues would lead to legislation that would please everyone in the end. Even those who are into deviant sects could potentially be won over, provided that a compromise is hammered out.
  • I thought we already had laws about misleading advertising. Isn't a domain name essentially and advertisement?
  • I really think the internet should consider a .porn tld (and a .kids for that matter). This would take care of a lot of these problems without making someone evaluate ridiculous cases. (I'm not saying I'm in favor of it, but there are some interesting arguments that would be worthy of public debate, IMO)

    -Sean

  • So after all the V-chip things going on, I have to wonder why there simply isn't a move by ICANN to require any registered domains that serve up HTML to include tags for browsers to tailor their display

    <meta name="sexual explicity" content="bare nipples goats">
    <meta name="violence" content="bonsai kitten" >

    I know that some consensus would be hard to achieve between people with vastly different ideas of what is proper (repressive governments, for example, would want more tags for outlawing

  • stoooopid (Score:2, Funny)

    by BortQ ( 468164 )
    The main problem with laws like this is who gets to decide what is innocent and what is not.

    What about bambi, nurses, cheerleaders, milk, feet, etc... They are all innocent words, but would make perfect porn domains.

  • I'm highly dubious of any law passed that's purpose is to protect the morality of others, who it is always inferred are unable to deal with it themselves. Whilst I'm not advocating the inclusion of pornography on the school syllabus, it seems completely barking mad to try to develop a system where every possible contact with particular topics are banned until a single day - and then suddenly expect your new adult to deal with it all. If content were illegal there are many ways to deal with it as laws curren
  • Theoretically, one could already press charges of fraud, since the site is very demonstrably not what a reasonable person would interpret its site name as claiming to be.

    Therefore, no further -and more to the point, no special- legislation should be necessary. This law is not needed.

    That's part of the problem with legislative bodies: they're always looking to make new laws without bothering to do any real research as to whether or not an existing law can be considered applicable. IANAL, of course, but I t

  • Trivia: Whitehouse.com is NOT named after the Whitehouse in Washington DC, but after Mary Whitehouse, an Anti-Porn fanatic.

    Reference: Google search [google.com]

  • Not the way (Score:2, Insightful)

    by amcguinn ( 549297 )

    The aim of this is perfectly reasonable, but I have real problems with using legislation. Basically, I do not see "the internet" as a public utility that should be regulated by lawmakers

    I would be more sympathetic to a more general law that prohibited "advertising obscene content in a misleading way" or something (it would have to be worded a lot more tightly than that, but you see what I am driving at). Pulling up a consensual, commercial system like DNS and slapping laws on it just is the wrong way to

  • Such as not wanting to click an "innocent-sounding" link and then see someone eating crap I think that this is an area where a simple law will not suffice.

    The problem is that there are two issues under discussion here. The first is, what constituted "adult material?" and the second is "what constitutes misleading terms?"

    Congress has tried again and again to define "Adult materials" but every attempt has been fraught with some difficulty. Most people would agree that pictures of one man eating crap or gr

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