I see it a little differently. To me that says if you include the word sex or porn in a 'grey area' domain like cheertryouts.com to make it cheertryoutsporn.com.. now it isn't misleading, where as before it could have been. But not all domains without the words sex, porn, erotica, etc are misleading. Not all grogs are weebles, but all weebles are skings? ; )

What T F?!
I understood you until that part. Sorry but you did lost me there.
:(

Oz

Hmm..

I wonder if it counts if you just own them, or if they actually have to be in use.

We have a lot of domains and I feel most of them are all clear, some may however be in a "gray area", but are far form "misleading" (I feel).

However, all of these domains have had the content removed from them, and are currently redirected.

Any thoughts?

AST

Tough call... could be construed as you "misleading" people by sending them to porn from an otherwise innocent domain. You are the one sending them there after all, so you are the one doing the deception.

Shame on you!

Do you think it would be enough to just put all of your html files into a directory called /porn/? Or name your pages that way?

Damn, I guess I'll have to get rid of http://www.adultblues.com then

When one looks objectively at the spirit of this law it becomes clear it is pointed at those who are directly misleading surfers into entering adult content sites.

Some good examples of this are the notorious .biz Google spammer, and those who use misleading titles and domains in email spam.

However I am sure there are those who will evaluate it in a more literal sense and see its purpose as forcing a disclaimer on all adult sites.

Very frightening....If say Cogents lawyers advise compliance with this to their clients half of adult traffic would shortly disappear.

Actually, doesn't the .biz spammer have a lot of descriptive terms like sex and porn in his domains? I thought that was half of his algorithm for high PR...

My gut feeling is that the 'spirit' of the law won't stop the conservatives from using this to go on the attack, not just to put up disclaimers, but to fine, imprison, and shutdown anyone who is not in their little cage of explicit domain names.

The question that will really keep you awake tonight:

Will the billers (and by proxy Visa USA) operating in the USA process for domains that can be seen to be breaking this law?

But there in lies the rub in that a child my search for 'kitty' but not persian kitty. Also a key thing here is intent and the burden of proof is on the government to prove the intent. In the case of my domain, it is well documented from years gone by that my online nickname from 1994 on has been "Persian Kitty". When the links site was started it only made sense to call it "Persian Kitty's Adult Links". Believe me in late 1995, I could have had my pick of tons and tons of choise names. The phrase is trademarked and has been for years and it's existence on the web is very well known. "Persian Kitty" is a brand no different then "Playboy" "Penthouse" "Hustler" "Mattel" "Sony", etc. (not that put myself up with the likes of any of them). If you do an SE on any search engine for "Persian Kitty" you get hardly anything but adult websites or sites making reference to mine. Why do you think that is? Because "Persian Kitty" is such a lucrative lure to draw in little children without credit cards to look at porn sites on a list? Of rather because the brand is so known that people who have heard of the site go to search engines looking for it and similar and it's that branding that makes it lucrative to trademark infringers? Turn on a 'family filter' on any of the SEs and search for my site. You won't get it as a response. Yeah sure some parents don't have a clue what their kids are doing on the net and don't bother with the filters. Even with the filters on a search for "Persian Kitty" doesn't yield the lucative end result of sites with info about persian cats. There's a rare one here and there in the results, but most of the results are adult webmaster scammers who haven't been filtered yet, etc. Search for "Persian Cat" and you won't find me at all? Why wouldn't I take advantage of the fact that a kitty is a cat and use that to my advantage in the search engines. Because I know damn well that my site is not known as Persian Cat and that people looking for persian cats are going to use those keywords. Why would I want to trick anyone to come to my site. They aren't going to want to be there. They aren't going to stay. AND they certainly aren't going to buy.

I also doubtful except possibly in the case of "whitehouse.com" that they will single out individual domains but rather look at an individual or companies body of work as a whole. If they are in the pratice of using misleading domains to gain SE and type ins for things a minor might search for.


Sorry for my rant.

However PK, I think it's been brought up in this thread already about the MO of conservatives throughout the history of porn and that is to lock you up in court battles that cost a lot of money.

Are you willing and prepared not only financially, but physically and mentally to fight a battle that COULD happen.

We all live day to day in this biz with the possibility of the gov coming in and giving us a royal fucking, but this law makes it a bit easier.

IMO I think this law will eventually be turned over in the supreme court once a case is brought up there. However how many wm's from rich to those that live paycheck to paycheck will this law leave broke?

"(a) Whoever knowingly uses a misleading domain name with the intent to deceive a person into viewing obscenity on the Internet shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both.

"(b) Whoever knowingly uses a misleading domain name with the intent to deceive a minor into viewing material that is harmful to minors on the Internet shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 4 years, or both."


"Intent" is a difficult thing to show, especially for a person who cannot benefit from minors viewing porn.

The defense is, "How could I INTEND to show porn to minors when there is no benefit to me, monetary or otherwise? They don't spend money," I'm not sure what the prosecution's answer to that could be.

Now, of course, there are fuck-ups who intend to do harm or are just reckless. If you set up a page of hardcore porn on a domain like maryhadalittlelamb.com you should be thrown in the slammer for sheer stupidity, if nothing else.

I wonder what about content providers?

I've never heard of xxxsexporncontent.com before, and I know some of them allow access to sample images without passwords.

I suppose they're screwed too...

AST

Persian Kitty-

You're speaking like a sane, logical person. But let me tell you, you could still be at risk.

The intent of the law is not the scary part. Read the Washington Post article. It says:

"Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) has voiced concerns that prosecutors could misinterpret the legislation."

The scary part is that it gives power to fanatics. It doesn't matter whether you think your domain is misleading or not. If it doesn't have pornographic language in it, it's going to be arguable. If you're standing in front of a judge who is conservative and frowns on pornography he may say that the simple fact that you were aware of the law and you kept using the domain is "knowing" or reckless disregard. Your definitions don't matter. Theirs are the ones with the power. It's not the law itself that is scary. It's the fact that people will be able to use this law to administer their prejudices against porn.

Being big or profitable or well-known isn't going to save you if your are targeted. There is a reason why the law is written the way it is. It goes so far as to list the specific words that qualify as pornographic and I ain't seein' Persian Kitty on the list. Maybe in the long run this won't last. Maybe if you're willing to go through the hell it would be to put up a fight and appeal it all the way, you can use your above defense and be the one to get the law changed. But in the meantime you better hope some little girl doesn't want to know some interesting facts about her new persian kitten. Or to be more realistic, what if someone wants to start a site about their persian kitty and oops that domain is already registered, and maybe that's how they run across you. You're in the same boat with everyone else.

If a scenerio can be conceived within the allowances of this law, then in my opinion it is perfectly possible and maybe even likely that it will occurr. It's a threat. That's my point of view.

By the way, you think everyone who is posting in this thread has a file at the FBI now?

Unseenworld,

How about

"(a) Whoever knowingly uses a misleading domain name with the intent to deceive a person into viewing obscenity on the Internet shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both.

You could profit from that.

Forget kids, it's any person.

Whats in a word?

Whats misleading depending on point of view, perspective and expression of what one thinks?

It is important for domains to be established as property I think in the eye of the law MAYBE! But it could be a nightmare.

If Domains were determined as property things could get much worse.
For example?
A domain could be taxed for example as soon as politicians see the opportunity in the taxation of domains as property... I am sure that would give many a webmaster the piss shivers with added symptoms of Syphilus. Sigh.

Domains cant be property because you lease them , you dont own them. Stop paying your domain fee its not yours anymore. Its very vague but I can see unless you sending spam that says get free quotes and it goes to a porn site or its macrosoft.com. How can they say you are misleading if you arent attached to anything is that not nonadult? I think also it helps if they do go after you if your home page is a disclaimer with nothing graphic on it. Because to prove you are misleading someone to porn The argument is stronger if they type in the domain and the first thing they see is a girl giving head or a spread open pussy shot. Then you have a problem.

If you have a warning page that says what follows, then surely you're not deceiving anyone into viewing obscene material?

The big problem is the lack of clarity. I feel sorry for the first person to best dragged before the court on this issue.

"Domains cant be property because you lease them , you dont own them. "
THank god for that :thumbsup

And certainly have to agree with Sacx on the warning page. Its not misleading with info provided on the subjact matter before entering.

That's my line of thinking, as well.

IMHO A warning page is not sufficient unless it is the only possible path into your content (i.e. htaccess checks the referer and if the viewer didn't come through the warning page then they get redirected there)

Otherwise, anyone who is deeplinked into your site past the warning page can easily have been misled into your porn.

On the positive side, doesn't this law imply that a warning page is NOT necessary at all, so long as your domain name contains sex or porn or sufficiently descriptive sexual terms in the domain name?

uh... my site is not very misleading.

www.povporn.com

I am so glad that almost all of my sites have either sex , porn, xxx, fetish or sluts in the title.

Well if someone has deeplinked into your site. Then it surely would be the person who linked that is responsible, because it's them who is responsible for the deception.

One thing that kind of annoys me about this law is that it puts all the onus on the webmaster and none on the parents or browsers.

There are probably some decent simple client side solutions that would work well and be more effective, but they've gone for this it's ALL the webmasters problem.

I think that, unfortunately, in a business where maintaining legitimacy is so very difficult, it is almost necessary to comply with the legislation, even though it may not be quite "fair" or consistant with the Constitution, which I feel is the case.

If you ask me, it is a bandaid on a more important problem, that of poor parenting. Parents who let their kids run rampant with the internet, do not supervise their use and instill in their kids the proper morals.

Yet another case of treating the symptoms and not the disease.

We have to take the fall because the majority of Americans are too LAZY to watch and raise their children right.

This pornographer has a 16 and almost 15 year old teen girls who still watch the Disney channel..

Solutions....

Make it a law that parents have filters for their kids. Hell, they have to have car seats for safety...
The government can have a free filter program available...



Visa problem= Credit card companys state that they will not allow charge backs for porn.. Problem solved..


shrugs.....

Amen!

No actually if you read it also says they want us to voluntarly clean up our front pages (no graphic sex)