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1 ~
Technology-Based Tools Available
to Non-End Users
Complementing the discussion of Chapter 12 on tools for the end
user, this chapter focuses on tools for other Internet stakeholders, such as
Internet service providers, content providers, or operators of adult-ori-
ented Web sites. As a general rule, these tools are most relevant to entities
that have some commercial reason for existing they have less relevance
to non-commercial sources of sexually explicit material (e.g., individuals
with exhibitionist preferences, friends sharing sexually explicit images,
and so on).
Table 13.1 provides a preview of this chapter.
13.1 A .XXX TOP-LEVEL DOMAIN
13.1.1 What Is a .xxx Top-level Domain?
A .xxx top-level domain (TLD) would be reserved for those entities
providing adult-oriented, sexually explicit material.] For example, www.
foo.xxx would name a site on which such content would be found, and
any pages within it (e.g., www.foo.xxx/examplel) or any subdomains
(e.g., www.fetish.foo.xxx) would be assumed to have similar content as
well. A key element of proposals for .xxx is whether the use of .xxx would
''.xxx'' is pronounced as "dot-xxx."
327
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YOUTH, PORNOGRAPHY, AND THE INTERNET
TABLE 13.1 Technology Tools for Use by Non-End Users
Tool Function One Illustrative Advantage One Illus
.xxx domain Requires that Web sites with Provides a way of identifying
(mandatory) adult-oriented sexually explicit adult-oriented sexually explicit
content must have a .xxx suffix material from these sites with
minimal effort
.xxx domain Gives any content provider the Enables sites that wish to be
(voluntary) option of selecting a domain known for providing sexually
name with a .xxx suffix explicit material to self-
identify, thus making inad-
vertent access to such sites less
likely
.kids domain .kids domain names reserved Provides high assurance that
for site with content material from .kids Web sites is
appropriate for children appropriate for children
Age verification Seeks to ensure that someone Places a major obstacle in the
technologies seeking to access adult-oriented path of minors seeking adult-
sexually explicit content is oriented sexually explicit
actually an adult content from commercial sites
Tools for Provides tools for content Reduces dissemination of
protecting owners to help control illegally copied sexually
intellectual dissemination of images they explicit images, which
property own constitute a significant amount
of the adult-oriented material
available online
be voluntary or mandatory. If use were mandatory, all providers of adult-
oriented content would be required to place such content on a Web page
with the .xxx TED, and penalties would be established for not doing so.
Today, assignment of domain names in some TLDs is done on a
purely voluntary basis, whereas for other TLDs, an adjudicating body
determines eligibility. For .com, .net, and .org, registrars of domain names
perform a strictly administrative function; for the .edu, .mil, .gov top-
level domains, some institutional entity decides that an organization is or
is not eligible. However, regardless of the TED involved, the content that
a domain name owner wishes to place on its Web site is not necessarily
related to the assignment of the domain name to that owner, and there is
no requirement today for such a relationship.
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TECHNOLOGY-BASED TOOLS AVAILABLE TO NON-END USERS
329
:age
One Illustrative Disadvantage
Voluntarey versus Involuntary Exposure
Requires difficult-to-obtain clearly
specified and international standard for
what constitutes material that must be
placed in .xxx domains
May lead to stronger political pressures
for mandatory inclusion in .xxx domain;
also likely to leave many Web pages
containing objectionable materials
unidentified as such, thus facilitating
inadvertent access
Requires difficult-to-obtain clearly
specified and international standard for
what material is appropriate for
children; does not allow for age-based
differentiation among children
Little applicability to non-commercial
sources of sexually explicit material
Hard to use against non-commercial
sources of sexually explicit material that
do not depend on Web distribution (e.g.,
Usenet, peer-to-peer networking)
Similar to filtering; prevents both kinds
of exposure to .xxx domains, but is not
useful against materials not found in
.xxx domains
Similar to filtering; prevents both kinds
of exposure to .xxx domains, but is not
useful against materials not found in
.xxx domains
See discussion in text of content-limited
Internet service providers
When implemented, can prevent both
deliberate and inadvertent access for
minors, although if user is willing to lie
about age, may not be able to protect
against deliberate access
Not applicable
Proponents of a .xxx domain argue that it would provide an easy way
of recognizing material presumed to be inappropriate for children, obvi-
ating the need for a laborious inspection of Web pages for such content
and simplifying the filtering task by simply blocking access to sites in the
.xxx domain.
The institution authorized to establish new top-level domains is the
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a non-
profit corporation that was formed in October 1998 to assume responsibil-
ity for the IP address space allocation, protocol parameter assignment,
domain name system management, and root server system management
functions previously performed under U.S. government contract by the
Internet Assigned Name Authority (IANA) and other entities.
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
xxx domain
330
YOUTH, PORNOGRAPHY, AND THE INTERNET
If and when a .xxx TLD is established, it would remain for product
vendors to build software that would provide users with the option of
rejecting all domain names ending in .xxx. Parents, schools, teachers, and
other concerned adults would then have to be willing to exercise the
options enabled in the software.
13.1.2 How Well Would a .xxx Top-Level Domain Work?
In essence, the use of a .xxx TLD amounts to a label to identify content
as inappropriate or appropriate for children that is based on the source of
that content. Thus, from the standpoint of the end user, all of the pros and
cons of label-based filtering described in Chapter 12 apply to the use of a
.xxx domain.
A .xxx domain would be intended to facilitate the blocking of access
to sexually explicit material. Thus, in principle, it along with filters-
would help to protect against both deliberate and inadvertent access.
From a filtering perspective, the effectiveness of such schemes depends
on the reliability of the assumption that adult-oriented, sexually explicit
material will be confined to a .xxx domain.
By definition, a .xxx domain name is reserved for sexually explicit
material and is thus irrelevant for any other material that is non-sexual
in nature. It is likely that certain parties will have some incentives to
place their content in such a domain.2 After all, they wish their content to
be found, and segregating it into an adult-oriented TLD helps to make it
found. (Indeed, a concentration of adult-oriented Web sites may in fact
provide children and adults with a "target-rich" environment in which
they could much more easily seek out sexually explicit material.) On the
other hand, a .xxx domain does not deal at all with the issue of peer-to-
peer transfers, e-mail attachments, and so on. For example, college stu-
dents may post collected sexually explicit material on various servers run
by universities or public Web hosting services and there is no guarantee
that all sexually explicit material will be contained on Web sites in the
.xxx domain, even if all commercial adult-oriented providers choose to
cooperate.
2For example, Seth Warshavsky, president of the Internet Entertainment Group, an adult
entertainment company, told the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee in 1998 that he would
like to see a Adult domain: "We're suggesting the creation of a new top-level domain called
'.adult' where all sexually explicit material on the Net would reside." See "Congress Weighs
Net Porn Bills," CNET article, February 10,1998, available online at
TECHNOLOGY-BASED TOOLS AVAILABLE TO NON-END USERS
331
Two issues related to a .xxx TLD are whether the use of the TLD is
mandatory or voluntary, and whether there is an adjudicating body that
monitors the content contained in one or another of these TLDs.3 Today,
no Web site owner is forced to use a given TLD, and there is no adjudicat-
ing body that determines if the content on a Web site matches its TLD.
For a .xxx domain, these two issues are related. Mandatory use of a
.xxx domain for sexually explicit material would imply creating a body
whose role was to decide what content must be placed into a .xxx domain,
and thus would affect all domain name owners, not just those associated
with adult-oriented content. However, because "harmful to minors" laws
are community-specific, a single body might be tempted to use a "lowest
common denominator" approach to such decisions. Thus, some organi-
zations and firms would be forced to use a .xxx domain even if they did
not believe their content was adult-oriented and sexually explicit. (Stig-
matization might also result from forced placement into a .xxx domain,
with the .xxx TLD becoming a de facto ghetto into which all controversial
material is placed.) Coupled with filters that block Web sites with a .xxx
suffix, this approach would lead to a bias in favor of overblocking. On the
other hand, in the absence of an adjudicating body, or if the use of a .xxx
domain is voluntary, adult-oriented, sexually explicit material could eas-
ily be found on non-.xxx domains. Filters designed to block sites based
solely on the .xxx TLD designation would be ineffective against such
content, and so commercial sites uninterested in differentiating between
children and adult traffic could take advantage of the lack of the .xxx
TLD. A voluntary .xxx domain might also reduce filter overblocking,
since operators of sites with sexually explicit material that was not ori-
ented towards adult entertainment (e.g., museums, medical schools)
would not choose a .xxx domain name and hence would be less likely to
be blocked.
A final and critical question for the mandatory use of a .xxx TLD is
how it would apply internationally. That is, how would U.S. law be able
to compel foreign Web site owners to use a .xxx domain?4 (Such a ques-
tion is particularly relevant given the commonness of full frontal nudity
in many mainstream foreign publications and Web sites.)
3An adjudicating body refers only to an entity that could make such a determination. A
wide range of entities at such a characterization from an organization or agency estab-
lished with a charge to make such determinations to a court or jury instructed to make such
determinations in accordance with applicable law.
4A particularly thorny issue in this regard concerns the implications of such efforts for
attempts by foreign governments to enforce their laws on Web sites based in the United
states. For more discussion, see computer science and Telecommunications Board, Na-
tional Research Council, 2001, Global Networks and Local Values, National Academy Press,
Washington, D.C.
332
YOUTH, PORNOGRAPHY, AND THE INTERNET
13.1.3 Who Decides What Material Should Be
Confined to .xxx Web Sites?
For voluntary use (in the absence of adjudicating bodies), only the
organization in question makes decisions about what material is adult-
oriented and sexually explicit. For non-voluntary use requiring an adju-
dicating body, the adjudicating body makes decisions about what should
and should not be placed in each domain, thus raising the question of
what community's standards would be used by the adjudicating body
and how they would be determined.
13.1.4 How Flexible and Usable Are Schemes
Based on a .xxx Top-Level Domain?
The usability of schemes based on .xxx would depend in large part on
whether or not domain names with these suffixes contain the content
implied by the TLD (as described above).
Another issue is whether the .xxx TLD would receive ICANN en-
dorsement. A number of schemes have been proposed to circumvent
ICANN in the establishment of other TLD names. Such proposals have
been controversial, because they violate principles that have been re-
garded by many as integral to the smooth operation of the Internet. In
particular, a non-endorsed TLD name might not be uniformly accessible
from every Internet access point (and today only a very small percentage
of Web users could access sites based on non-endorsed TLDs), and under
some circumstances, a user seeking to access a site based on a non-
endorsed domain name might wind up at different Web sites depending
on the location from which it was accessed.5
13.1.5 What Are the Costs and Infrastructure
Required for a .xxx Top-Level Domain?
For .xxx domain names, the adjudicating body must make decisions
about every Web page that is posted on the Internet, because it must
decide if such material belongs in a .xxx domain name. Such a task is
daunting, and it is virtually impossible that an adjudicating body could
do so. More likely, it would undertake what sampling it could do at
reasonable expense and would examine non-.xxx sites that were reported
as having sexually explicit content.
5This point is discussed in more detail in a computer science and Telecommunications
Board report on domain name systems that is currently in preparation.
TECHNOLOGY-BASED TOOLS AVAILABLE TO NON-END USERS
333
In addition, a .xxx domain would pose a number of technical difficul-
ties.6 An adult Web site may reside on a .xxx domain, and indeed may
wish to reside on such a domain. However, consider the example of a
university which hosts a wide variety of content, some of which is
deemed to be adult-oriented and sexually explicit by the adjudicating
body. Web pages for such content will by assumption reside under-
neath the .edu domain of the university. Under a .xxx domain name,
another separate category in the domain name service tree must be main-
tained by the university. Alternatively, a university could require that
projects containing such content set up their own Web servers in the .xxx
domain, which does not involve a high cost. Project Web sites under the
.edu domain could contain links to the Web sites in the .xxx domain.
A second technical difficulty is the fact that the domain name service
of the Internet supports page redirection. That is, the owner of the site
www.safe_for_kids.com has the technical capability to force individuals
intending to visit the www.safe_for_kids.com site to visit a .xxx Web page
instead, whether or not the owner of the .xxx Web page wishes this redi-
rection to happen.7 Such a scenario raises a question of responsibility if a
minor is channeled to the .xxx site. The owner of www.safe_ for_kids.com
has no sexually explicit content on its site, but is responsible for directing
the minor to the .xxx site. The owner of a .xxx domain name may have
taken no actions to attract children to the .xxx site. Who bears responsibil-
ity for this exposure?
13.1.6 What Does the Future Hold for
a .xxx Top-Level Domain?
At least one legislative proposal has been offered to support the es-
tablishment of .xxx domains.8 As this report goes to press in May 2002,
the prospects of these proposals are unclear.
6See ".xxx Considered Dangerous" online at
334
YOUTH, PORNOGRAPHY, AND THE INTERNET
13.1.7 What Are the Implications of Using
a .xxx Top-Level Domain?
The establishment of a .xxx domain, even if use is voluntary, would
establish a "big fat target" for subsequent regulatory efforts. In other
words, even if its use is voluntary, it may not remain that way for long as
policy makers take note of its existence.
13.1.8 Findings on a .xxx Top-Level Domain
1. A .xxx domain that is selected voluntarily may have some appeal
for enterprises that are involved primarily in providing access to sexually
explicit material intended to arouse desire (i.e., what is often known as
"pornography") and that use a distribution channel requiring the use of
domain names. Such enterprises are likely to use a .xxx domain as a part
of their advertising strategies.
2. A .xxx domain would have little effect on (a) sexually explicit ma-
terial that is not intended to arouse desire but which some parties may
regard as inappropriate anyway, (b) a mixed-use domain (e.g., a univer-
sity with a .edu Web site with a faculty member who does research on
human sexuality or studies the evolution of sexuality in art and media
and wishes to post research materials on a university Web site), or (c)
sources of inappropriate sexually explicit material that are located out-
side the United States (if these sources do not wish to be identified with a
.xxx domain).
3. The use of a TLD to identify inappropriate content would require
software (e.g., Web browsers) that can be configured to block content
coming from .xxx sites. Conceptually, this arrangement is identical to
that of filtering based on content, except that the task of developing black
lists and white lists is made much easier.
4. The benefits associated with a .xxx domain would depend on the
association of a TLD with specific content. This fact raises the question of
an institutional entity that might be established to promote such associa-
tion. If the benefits associated with a purely voluntary use of either do-
main are sufficient, then no such entity need exist. But if the affected
public requires higher confidence in the association between TLD and
content, such an entity may be required, and that entity would be ventur-
ing into difficult uncharted waters as it sought to determine whether
certain content should or should not be contained within a given TLD. In
the case of a .xxx domain, the scope of its responsibility would be to
ensure that all sexually explicit material was hosted on a .xxx domain and
nowhere else an entirely daunting task.
TECHNOLOGY-BASED TOOLS AVAILABLE TO NON-END USERS
13.2 A .KIDS TOP-LEVEL DOMAIN
13.2.1 What Is a .kids Top-Level Domain?
335
A .kids top-level domain would be reserved for those entities provid-
ing material intended and appropriate for children. 9 That is, it would be
explicitly designed for the use of children, providing safe, lawful, and
appropriate content (e.g., information and entertainment), services, and
facilities of especially high interest for them. Further, it would safeguard
the privacy and safety of all children accessing .kids domain names.
For example, www.foo.kids would name a site on which such content
would be found, and any pages within it (e.g., www.foo.kids/examplel)
or any subdomains (e.g., www.nature.foo.kids) would be assumed to have
similar content as well. In general, use of a .kids domain has been dis-
cussed in entirely voluntary terms, and it would make no sense to make it
mandatory.
Proponents of a .kids domain argue that it would provide an easy
way of recognizing material presumed to be appropriate for children,
simplifying the filtering task by simply allowing access only to sites in the
.kids domain. As in the case of a .xxx domain, product vendors would
have to build software that would provide users with the option of ac-
cepting only domain names ending in .kids. Parents, schools, teachers,
and other concerned adults would then have to be willing to exercise the
options enabled in the software.
13.2.2 How Well Would a .kids Top-Level Domain Work?
Because the use of a .kids TED amounts to a label to identify content
as appropriate for children that is based on the source of that content, all
of the conceptual pros and cons of label-based filtering described in Chap-
ter 12 apply to the use of .kids. However, in addition to the baseline
question of the extent to which it would help to keep children away from
inappropriate materials, a second question particularly relevant to a .kids
domain is the extent to which it would succeed in providing appropriate,
educational, and informative content and experiences for children.
A .kids domain would be intended to promote access to child-friendly
material. To the extent that this occurs, children have less time available
to seek out inappropriate material. Thus, a .kids domain alone may help
9".kids" is pronounced "dot-kids."
336
YOUTH, PORNOGRAPHY, AND THE INTERNET
to reduce deliberate access to inappropriate material but cannot address
the problem of inadvertent access. A browser or Internet service provider
restricting access only to .kids Web pages effectively provides the same
kind of protection as a content-limited ISP service.
From a filtering perspective, the effectiveness of such schemes de-
pends on the reliability of the assumption that material intended for chil-
dren will be found on a .kids domain. It can be anticipated that many
firms seeking to provide content for children will have incentives to ob-
tain .kids domain names, because such a domain name would guarantee
their audience. Today, no Web site owner is forced to use a given TED,
and a Web site operator can post anything on his or her Web site. If this
were true in the .kids domain, it could defeat the intent of keeping chil-
dren away from inappropriate content.
It is unlikely that those in the commercial enterprise of providing
adult-oriented, sexually explicit content would choose to place their ma-
terials in a .kids domain. Furthermore, other enterprises, especially those
operating in the commercial mainstream, would select quite carefully the
content they would place in a .kids domain. However, it is easy to imag-
ine that if .kids domain names were as freely available as today's .com
domain names, certain parties would place inappropriate content of some
kind on a Web site with a .kids domain name.
Thus, the safety of a .kids domain name likely depends on the exist-
ence of some mechanism to ensure that the content available from any
given .kids site matches the intent of the .kids domain. One such mecha-
nism is an adjudicating body that decides what organizations would be
eligible for a .kids domain name (so that .kids domain names would not
be as freely available as today's .com or .net names). Further, the body
would make decisions about specific content that would be eligible for
placement. The effectiveness of a .kids domain would depend, then, on
the wisdom of the judgments of the adjudicating body and the extent to
which it had the power to enforce its judgments. The body's enforcement
power might depend on its ability to take away a .kids domain name from
an owner found to be misusing it, or an acceptance of civil liability for
false and deceptive advertising or business practices in that event (sug-
gesting a possible role for the Federal Trade Commission).
The second question involves the extent to which a .kids domain
would succeed in providing appropriate, educational, and informative
content and experiences for children. It is clear that commercial entities
that market their products and services to children would make signifi-
cant use of a .kids domain. But as discussed in Section 10.9, non-commer-
cial entities could also have an important role to play in populating the
.kids domain.
TECHNOLOGY-BASED TOOLS AVAILABLE TO NON-END USERS
13.2.3 Who Decides What Material Should Be
Allowed in .kids Web Sites?
337
In the absence of an adjudicating body for allocating domain names,
only the organization seeking a domain name makes decisions about what
material is appropriate for children. In the presence of an adjudicating
body, the body makes decisions about what should and should not be
placed in each domain, thus raising the question of what standards should
be used by the adjudicating body and how they would be determined.
An undetermined aspect of a .kids domain would be the develop-
mental or age level that should govern placement. As noted in Chapter 5,
what is perfectly appropriate for a 16-year-old may be inappropriate for a
7 year-old. Coupled with the fact that the information needs of small
children are generally less than those of older children, it would seem that
content for .kids would tend to be oriented toward younger children.
One possibility for definition of Web sites eligible for a .kids domain
name is a site that is subject to the requirements of the Child Online
Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), that is, a site "directed" to children
under 13. To determine whether a site is "directed" toward children, the
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) considers several factors, including "the
subject matter; visual or audio content; the age of models on the site;
language; whether advertising on the Web site is directed to children;
information regarding the age of the actual or intended audience; and
whether a site uses animated characters or other child-oriented fea-
tures."~° If a .kids domain is indeed intended for use by children under
13, the FTC definition of a site directed to children is one reasonable point
of departure for a working definition.
13.2.4 How Flexible and Usable Are Schemes
Based on a .kids Top-Level Domain?
The usability of schemes based on .kids depends in large part on
whether or not domain names with this suffix contain the content implied
by the TED (as described above). As with a .xxx domain, another issue is
whether these TLDs receive ICANN endorsement. A number of schemes
have been proposed to circumvent ICANN in the establishment of other
TLD names, and the discussion above about a .xxx domain in this area
applies identically here.
Resee Federal Trade Commission, 1999, "How to Comply with the Children's Online Pri-
vacy Protection Rule," November. Available online at
344
YOUTH, PORNOGRAPHY, AND THE INTERNET
practical matter, AVTs will be used to differentiate adults and children
only when the site contains material that the site operator believes is
obscene with respect to minors.
13.3.4 How Flexible and Usable Are
Products for Verifying Age?
More rigorous age verification procedures often, but not always, in-
crease the "hassle factor" that users face. For example, the highest degree
of reliability is available when public records can be checked and an
access code sent to the postal address associated with those records. How-
ever, such a requirement also prevents adults from gaining the immediate
access that is possible with certain other methods.
13.3.5 What Are the Costs and Infrastructure
Required for Age Verification?
Financial Costs
The costs of using AVTs fall primarily on Web site owners and on
adult users.
Psychological and Emotional Costs
AVTs may entail a loss of privacy for the adult user, both perceived
and real. In a face-to-face transaction with a clerk checking a driver's
license, there may be some embarrassment, but as a general rule, the clerk
does not make a record of the license and does not record the titles of the
material being purchased or rented. As importantly, the user can see that
the clerk is not doing so. When an online AVT is used, the reasonable
assumption would be that records are being kept (whether or not they are
in practice), and so the user has a plausible reason to be concerned that his
name is associated with certain types of material.
The privacy problem is exacerbated by how some AVTs work. For
example, an age verification system (AVS) often provides a code number
certifying age, which the user enters into the age verification field on an
adult Web site. Usually, the Web site then contacts the AVS to check the
validity of this number (which will expire if the user does not maintain
his AVS membership). Thus, the AVS has a complete record of all of the
adult sites visited using its age credential.
Furthermore, AVTs that rely on public records generally have access
to the age information recorded therein. Thus, the age of a user is made
available even though that provides more information than is needed to
satisfy statutory requirements.
TECHNOLOGY-BASED TOOLS AVAILABLE TO NON-END USERS
345
Note also that commercial trends are pointing increasingly toward
the customization of computer and device behavior and function to spe-
cific users (who may be one of many using a particular device). To the
extent that this is true, age information may be associated with such
functionality. At the same time, for many hosts, there are few incen-
tives and not much of a business case to go to the expense of deploying
AVTs.
It should be noted that legislation such as the Child Online Protection
Act (discussed in Chapter 4) does not require personal identification the
AVTs specified in the legislation are intended as a way to screen out most
minor children, not to obtain the identity of users. However, the transac-
tion between site operator and credit card company inevitably entails some
expense for the credit card company, and so the credit card company is not
likely to be willing to process such requests if no revenue results from it-
therefore, the site operator will submit only transactions that are associated
with an actual purchase, rather than a simple age verification request, and
purchases are necessarily connected with personal identity.
Infrastructure
The primary infrastructure issue is the deployment of AVTs among
host sites. AVTs can play a meaningful role in reducing the access of
children to adult-oriented material only to the extent that they are indeed
widely deployed. (If they are not, they render only a small amount of
content unavailable, and the generic equivalent of that material is almost
certainly available elsewhere.)
Depending on the kind of AVTs involved, other cooperating institu-
tions or individuals are necessary.
· AVTs that rely on public records indicating age obviously depend on
the availability of those records from public agencies. Given that there is some
controversy about He widespread commercial availability of such records,
their continued availability from public agencies cannot be taken for granted.
· AVTs are often built into parental controls, and parental controls
must be deployed by the adults responsible for youth. In practice, today's
infrastructure for Internet access means that all access points (computers)
that a given youth might use must have the appropriate parental controls.
13.3.6 What Does the Future Hold For
Age Verification Systems?
Improvements in AVSs depend primarily on the development and
deployment of an infrastructure to support age verification, rather than
the technologies themselves. For most commercial online transactions,
346
YOUTH, PORNOGRAPHY, AND THE INTERNET
the age of the consumer is not particularly relevant, assuming that the
consumer has the ability to pay for the products or services being offered.
Thus, there appears to be no general-purpose need for a pervasive infra-
structure for age verification.
This suggests that if improved AVSs are to be available for vendors of
adult-only services and products, the infrastructure required for verify-
ing age must either be (a) a subset of an infrastructure that can be used for
broader purposes, or (b) deployed by those vendors.
In case (a), a number of scenarios are possible. For example, smart-
card technology enables a higher degree of security in authentication than
do passwords, which are easily compromised. A "smart card" is a small
physical hardware device (typically the size of a credit card) containing
read-only non-volatile memory and a microprocessor that can be inserted
into a card reader attached to a computer. In most scenarios, the indi-
vidual user carries the card and inserts it into an Internet access point that
requires such a device. The memory provided on the device can store
information about the user, including his or her age, preferences for mate-
rial to be blocked, and so on. Software installed on the computer, and on
Web sites visited, would check the smart card for dates of birth when
necessary, and if the user were underage for certain types of material,
would refuse to grant access to that material. However, computing and
Internet access technology has not developed in this direction, and the
costs of converting to such an infrastructure specifically for this purpose
are entirely prohibitive.
If, for other reasons, such technologies become common on personal
computers and other devices that can be used to access the Internet, those
offering adult-only products or services would be able to require a smart
card-enabled age verification as a condition of access. Even today, one firm
seeks to offer "smart" library cards on which parents can indicate their
preference for their children to have filtered or unfiltered Internet access in
the library. Nevertheless, the effectiveness of such an approach depends
on the vendor's decision to deny access to those who are unable to present
a smart card, for whatever reason (including the lack of a card reader on an
Internet access point or a legitimate adult customer who lacks the smart
card). Such a decision runs quite counter to business incentives to achieve
the maximum exposure of a product or service being sold.
Another scenario is that a vendor's knowledge of a user's age may
well provide business benefits and more lucrative marketing opportuni-
ties. Routine collection of age information may well occur in the future
with tools that provide automated policy preference negotiation (e.g.,
~2See
TECHNOLOGY-BASED TOOLS AVAILABLE TO NON-END USERS
347
Passport and similar productsl3~. However, age information collected in
this manner may well not be verified (as it is surely not when a child is
asked online to reveal his or her age).
In case (b), the current "adult check" services available are an ex-
ample of a vendor-supported infrastructure. However, for the most part,
the adult-check services used by those providing sexually explicit mate-
rial are based on credit cards. (One might argue that credit cards are
themselves an infrastructure on which adult check services build.) More
effective verification services that are dedicated to serving these vendors
are likely to entail additional expense.
Today's credit cards do not distinguish between minor and adult
owners. But it is technically feasible for credit cards issued to youth to be
tagged with an entry in the credit card company's database saying "do
not authorize payment for sexually explicit material." The downside of
such an approach is the processing burden that it imposes on the credit
card company's systems.
Given widespread concerns for privacy, it may also be possible to
develop AVTs that provide a greater degree of privacy for individual
users. In particular, the legal requirement that age verification technolo-
gies are seeking to meet is not the age of the user but rather whether on a
given day he or she is over 18 (or whatever the age of majority is).
Finally, despite the limitations of AVTs based on credit cards, they
could be much more effective if they were systematically coupled with
"plain brown wrappers" around the content that is inappropriate for chil-
dren. Chapter 9 described elements of a regulatory approach that can be
used to encourage the deployment of AVTs in front of all content that is
regarded as inappropriate for children.
13.3.7 What Are the Implications of Using
Age Verification Systems?
Widespread AVTs may compromise the privacy of adult viewing.
Also, some AVTs enable indeed require systematic tracking of all sites
13Passport (specifically, Kids Passport) is a service offered by Microsoft that is intended to
enable parents to decide whether their children can use services provided by participating
Web sites that collect and/or disclose personally identifiable information. These services can
include newsletters, discussion groups, pen-pal programs, wish lists, and contests. Parents
can provide consent for three levels of access no consent (child can use the Web site but not
services that collect or disclose personal information), limited (third party can collect personal
information but is not allowed to share or display it), and full (third party can collect and/or
disclose personal information according to its privacy policy). For more information, see
and
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YOUTH, PORNOGRAPHY, AND THE INTERNET
that use a given age certification, thus allowing a dossier of visited adult
sites to be compiled. Thus, they may inhibit free flow of information and
create a chilling effect on the freedom of adults who wish to access lawful
though perhaps controversial material.
Widespread requirements to present documents certifying one's age
raise many of the same concerns that national ID cards raise. In particu-
lar, while acknowledging that verification of one's adult status is neces-
sary from time to time, the concern is that a diversity of methods and
documents for certifying one's adult status will in the name of simplic-
ity lead easily to a single document indicating age, and perhaps other
personal information. Once such a document exists, it becomes very easy
to insist on the use of this document as the necessary documentation for a
wide range of societal benefits, such as employment, health care, gun
ownership, and so on. Much as the Social Security number has evolved
into a de facto universal identifier, such a document could well become
the basis for national databases that track all of the significant activities of
all those with this document and all of the concerns about loss of pri-
vacy and government/private sector abuse emerge in full force.
13.3.8 Findings on Age Verification Technologies
One approach to protecting children from inappropriate sexually ex-
plicit material on the Internet is based on being able to differentiate be-
tween children and adults in an online environment, and AVTs are a tool
available for doing that.
1. Those wishing to verify age with very high levels of confidence
require that a document with proof of age can be associated clearly and
unambiguously with the specific individual in question.l4 Over the Inter-
net, there is no mechanism known to the committee that accomplishes
this task on a short time scale (seconds or minutes).l5
2. As a practical matter, AVTs will be used to differentiate adults and
children only when the site contains material that the site operator be-
lieves is obscene with respect to minors.
3. Mechanisms that prevent age verification on short time scales are
likely to have a significant negative impact on sales and would be an
14Compared to credit cards, AVTs based on public record databases do provide a some-
what higher level of assurance of an alleged adult status (see Finding #4 in this section).
But if these public record AVTs do not also use an offline method to verify identity, they are
subject to many of the same problems associated with the teenager use of credit cards that
have been pilfered from a parent's wallet.
15This finding refers only to the first time the individual needs age verification. In subse-
quent interactions, the individual can generally use the certification that was previously
provided.
TECHNOLOGY-BASED TOOLS AVAILABLE TO NON-END USERS
349
impediment for adults seeking commercial adult-oriented products and
services.
4. AVTs based on credit cards do provide some significant obstacles
to children seeking deliberate access to inappropriate sexually explicit
material. However, as credit cards (and prepaid cards usable as credit
cards) are increasingly marketed to adolescents as young as 13, such AVTs
will become less useful. Furthermore, parents that have explicitly al-
lowed their children to have credit cards or prepaid cards may be more
likely to trust the viewing behavior of their children as well.
5. The underlying technology to support widespread, high-confidence
age verification does exist, but its implementation could be very expensive,
and its use would raise a myriad of important privacy concerns.
13.4 TOOLS FOR PROTECTING INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
The widespread use of tools for protecting intellectual property may
help to reduce the exposure of children to inappropriate sexually explicit
materials that may have been taken from subscription adult-oriented Web
sites.
13.4.1 What Are Tools for Protecting Intellectual Property?
A variety of technologies have been developed to protect intellectual
property. For example, some rights management technologies enable an
image to be transmitted to a given user but increase quite substantially
the difficulty of printing, forwarding, or saving itch (Box 13.3 describes
some rights management technologies.) Other tools compare an image or
text found on a Web site to a known and properly owned image or text
(presumably the property of its creator or subsequent rights holder), and
allow the flanging of near-matches that mav indicate imuronerlv derived
works.
J 1 1 J
The primary users of rights management tools would be content pro-
viders with proprietary content.
13.4.2 How Well Do Tools for Protecting
Intellectual Property Work?
As noted in Chapter 3, the online adult industry is highly stratified and
includes a relatively small number of well-established firms and a much
Alit is of course true that one can always take a photograph of a screen, and then deal
with it as one would prefer. But disabling system-provided capabilities for printing, for-
warding, and saving goes a long way to protecting content.
350
YOUTH, PORNOGRAPHY, AND THE INTERNET
larger number of "fly-by-night" operators, many of whom illegally use copy-
righted content from established firms. Wide use of rights management
technologies could significantly reduce the flow of new content to these firms.
There is some reason to believe that these smaller firms and operating entities
are also the parties that are least responsible about keeping children away
from their adult-oriented contently To the extent that this is true, drying up
the supply of new content for these firms will increase the likelihood of a
shakeout in the industry that will increase the prominence of the more estab-
lished firms at the expense of these smaller ones.
17For example, the smaller ones are likely to derive some considerable fraction of income
from raw traffic, thus giving them little incentive to screen out children. See Chapter 3 for
more details.
TECHNOLOGY-BASED TOOLS AVAILABLE TO NON-END USERS
351
A more mature adult industry (consisting of established firms rather
than the "fly-by-righters") is likely to have more concerns about the pro-
tection of intellectual property as well as being more likely to take actions
to restrict the access of children to their products. With a reduction in the
content available to fly-by-night firms that are less likely to take actions
restricting the access of children, certain types of adult content will be less
accessible to children. The reduction is likely to mean a lower degree of
inadvertent access, but the ease of deliberate access to generic adult con-
tent is likely to be unaffected to a significant extent.
Approaches based on tools to protect intellectual property of the adult
entertainment industry are relevant only to content originating there, and
have no applicability to content for which no intellectual property rights
can be legally asserted.
A second benefit of tools that detect possible thefts of intellectual
property is in the prosecution of child pornography. As noted in Chap-
ter 4, obscenity and child pornography differ in a number of key respects,
and one of the most important differences is that while a legal determina-
tion that an image is obscene depends on factors extraneous to the image
itself (i.e., on community standards), a legal determination that an image
constitutes child pornography does not. Thus, once an image has been
determined to be child pornography, images that are substantially identi-
cal to it (e.g., cropped images, images with shading superimposed on top)
can also be determined to be child pornography. Thus, images suspected
of being child pornography can be automatically compared (e.g., by a
Web-crawling "spider") to databases of known child pornography. Such
a technique will not identify new images of child pornography, but since
a substantial amount of child pornography is "recycled," application of
this technique is still relevant.
The impact of rights management tools (RMTs) on reducing access of
children to adult-oriented material depends on their widespread use, but
in any case is an indirect one. The primary purpose of an RMT is to
protect intellectual property and the secondary effect may well be to
reduce the volume of adult-oriented materials available to children.
13.4.3 Who Decides What Is Inappropriate?
This question is not applicable in this context.
Resee, for example, testimony of Mark Ishikawa, CEO of Bay TSP to the COPA Commis-
sion, on August 4, 2000. Available online at
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YOUTH, PORNOGRAPHY, AND THE INTERNET
13.4.4 How Flexible and Usable Are Products
for Protecting Intellectual Property?
From the standpoint of the end user, the primary usability issue is the
extent to which different content providers use the same RMTs. If every
Web site uses a different "home-grown" RMT, the user interfaces for
viewing content are likely to be different and thus the user will have to
use different methods for viewing different Web sites. This limiting case
represents the greatest degree of inconvenience for the user.
13.4.5 What Are the Costs and Infrastructure
Required for Protecting Intellectual Property?
An approach based on the protection of intellectual property requires
client-side software and hardware to perform rights management. While
in principle any individual content provider could simply download
rights management software to a user to protect its intellectual property,
the effort required to do so is large. A widely deployed rights manage-
ment system would be something on which many content providers could
rely to protect intellectual property and some infrastructure software,
such as Windows Media Player, is beginning to incorporate such features.
Alternatively, the content providers in the adult industry could develop
their own rights management system and require that their content be
displayed through it.
An essential element of infrastructure for the use of tools to protect
intellectual property is an enforcement mechanism. The enforcement
mechanism is technical if the technology prevents content from being
improperly copied. However, such systems sometimes affect the user's
experience, making systems slower and less convenient to use and to
customize for his or her needs. Content providers who insist on using
such systems then must deal with customer dissatisfaction that arises as a
result. When the technology facilitates or enables the detection of pirated
materials, a procedural or organizational or legal mechanism is needed to
prevent further pirating and/or to deter others from doing the same. For
example, if pirated materials are found on the bulletin board of an Inter-
net service provider, the ISP has to be willing to take down pirated mate-
rial if intellectual property rights are to be respected.
13.4.6 What Does the Future Hold for Tools
for Protecting Intellectual Property?
As of this writing (May 2002), a variety of technology vendors are in
the early stages of developing rights management metadata systems, by
TECHNOLOGY-BASED TOOLS AVAILABLE TO NON-END USERS
353
themselves (e.g., XMCL from RealNetworks and others (http: //
www.xmlcl.org)) and as part of broader content standards (e.g. MPEG-
21~. At the same time, peer-to-peer technologies such as Gnutella demon-
strate that if a single copy of content can be placed on the network with no
rights management wrapping or marked as "unlimited and untracked
use by anyone," it can become widely distributed rapidly.
A more detailed discussion of the future of tools for protecting intel-
lectual property is beyond the scope of this report. A report by the Na-
tional Research Council The Digital Dilemma addresses this point in
greater detail.~9
13.4.7 What Are the Implications of Tools for
Protecting Intellectual Property?
Discussing the implications of tools for protecting intellectual prop-
erty is beyond the scope of this report. A CSTB study The Digital Di-
lemma addresses these implications in substantial detail.20
13.4.8 Findings on Tools for Protecting Intellectual Property
1. Purloined content accounts for a significant fraction of sexually
explicit material on the Internet, though reliable data on this point is hard
to obtain. Tools for protecting such content as the intellectual property of
its creators thus have some potential to limit the number of Web sites and
channels through which such content might be obtained.
2. To the extent that the rightful owners of this content are firms
sufficiently established to be willing to take steps to deny children access
to their material, it is in the interest of children that the intellectual prop-
erty rights of these parties are respected. Owners and operators of adult
Web sites will have to take the initiative to enforce intellectual property
protection if this approach is to prove viable.
)9Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, National Research Council. 2000.
The Digital Dilemma: Intellectual Property in the Digital Age. National Academy Press, Wash-
ington, D.C.
20Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, National Research Council, 2000,
The Digital Dilemma: Intellectual Property in the Digital Age.
Prepublication copy- subject to further editorial correction
Box 14.1 An illustration of mutual reinforcement
1 4-24
Impact on suppliers of Impact on potential consumers
inappropriate material of inappropriate material
Social/Educational Strategies Business decisions and ethics Teach children to snake
(e.g., ISPs can choose to choices to
refrain from carrying stay away and to target
USENET newsgroups with a searches more precisely to
large amount of child reduce chances of
pornography) inadvertent exposure; teach
parents how to educate their
children about these strategies
and to monitor what their
children are doing online.
_
Technology-based Tools Labeling material so that Help guide children to
parents and others can easily appropriate sites and help to
ascertain the appropriateness prevent access to
of that material for their inappropriate sites, consistent
children with parental values and
preferences
Public Policy Shape the environment by Provide support for social and
reducing educational strategies (e.g.,
deceptive practices (e.g., new standards of reaming for
mouse/rapping, spam, K-12, outreach to parents to
capturing of educate them about the
misspelled web sites) Intemet)
.
