CircleID

In the end the record, TV, Movie and pornography industries will steal the greatest tool to hit the common person. The internet.

Would it be too simple toput a rating class or code such as used on tv and movies with the site address giving parents the opportunity to set restrictions on sites with the parental control option on their computer?

Yes it would be easy to classify what is on the net like movies are done now. However somone has to pay for the government employees to do the work. Forms would have to be filled out blah blah blah. It takes a credit card and 15 minutes to have a web domain. In one Saturday I can have a site setup and looking good. This ability (freedom) would dissappear. 

The facts of this case have been terribly twisted and misconstrued by the press, and even by commentators.  A proper analysis easily demonstrates that Zuccarini is NOT guilty of violated the Truth in Domains Law:

Here is the exact language of the law Zuccarini was charged with violating:

"Whoever knowingly uses a MISLEADING DOMAIN NAME on the Internet 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."

As you can see, The Truth in Domains Law has TWO elements.  First, the violator must use a "misleading domain." It is fairly clear that Zuccarini did this by using typos.  But that's only half the law. The second element of the law is that the domain be used "with the INTENT TO DECEIVE" someone into seeing pornography.  The alleged porn page that Zuccarini's domain name popped up was http:// hanky-panky-college.com This page has NO PORN, NO PICTURES, AND NO OBSCENE LANGUAGE AT ALL.  The entire page is a WARNING and porn is ONLY seen if the ENTER button is clicked.  Those under 18 are warned they do not have permission to click enter and Zuccarini even recommends filters to avoid receiving porn. If a user exits the hanky-panky-college.com splash page, the window closes and NO PORN is displayed.  There are 3 pop-up windows for non-porn material.

Anyone wishing to understand, or offer an intelligent and reasoned comment about this case should look at http:// hanky-panky-college.com for themselves and see whether Zuccarini INTENDED TO DECEIVE anyone into seeing porn.  He may have intended to give them a chance to see it—but he certainly warned them of what they would see if they clicked enter and by exiting they would have seen no porn.  You can also check how hanky-panky-college looked historically by going to http:// archive.org. You will see that the warning page existed when the law was passed.  Amazingly, the allegations in the complaint even mention the warning page—but they still charged him with violating the law.

Vague or not, the facts as they stand do NOT demonstrate that Zuccarini violated any criminal law.  What he did may have violated trademark laws, but those facts do not amount to a violation of the Truth in Domains Law.

I think that trying to regulate an entity(the internet)that was never meant to be regulated is a bad thing. If no one person owns it, then no one can enforce any rules on it. If someone does own it, then they better show themselves and officially lay claim to it. You see, the parents want the government to raise their kids for them. So the parents slam their fist up and down on their own hichair trays until a law gets past to "protect" their kids. So the parents with prominent last names can do everything but be responsible for their own childrens activities. Like unsupervised internet access. Parents make me sick these days. -

It looks like Congress owns the Internet. ICANN licks their boots.

Using this flawed law to address pronography is not ever going to work well.  ICANN's registries and registrars should be doing the policing and have failed to do so.

I and our members of INEGroup have agree with Ari Goldburger remarks and comments
posted here.

Regards,

Jeffrey A. Williams

Call me excessively suspicious, but is it really just a coincidence that news of criminal charges against Mr. Zuccarini should so closely precede the Wall Street Journal's coverage of announcements by Verisign (a really creepy company if there ever was one—and one inclined to share Mr. Zuccarini's view that the government just needs to get out of the way of "entrepreneurs," so they can make up their own rules unilaterally) and by other Internet 'insiders' about how they plan to capitalize on users' typographical errors?

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, it seems to me that Mr. Zuccarini has been paid a very high compliment this week—and, in some ways, he may have been thinking way ahead of AOL, Microsoft, and Verisign.

Not that I'm any fan of John Zuccarini. I've entered a typo or two in my browser from time to time, and found his method of doing business quite a nuisance. Sometimes those pop-up boxes just make me spitting mad. But does that mean he needs to be put in jail for it? Or even put through arrest and trial (even if acquitted)? I'm skeptical.

Frankly, Zuccarini's pop-ups are not all that much more of a nuisance than the constant, annoying "free market" ideological mantra routinely recited in the media by the very Members of Congress and Justice Department officials who are making a public show now out of "catching" Zuccarini and punishing him for . . . well, they're punishing him for responding to the exact same free-market incentives that they purportedly celebrate and expect all the rest of us to embrace. Or is their support of the free market more like the approach to equality taken by the Pigs in 'Animal Farm:' i.e, All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others?

Continued below...

If we look to actions of our governmental leaders as evidence, then, apparently, the free market is just great when it favors fat-cat campaign donors, so don't regulate stuff like the environment or race discrimination or working conditions—but our current crop of leaders don't really seem to be much in favor of the "free market" when smaller businesses are on the receiving end of regulation—and they're awfully pro-government and anti-market when it comes to stuff like sex, drugs, and music. So what gives?

Could it be that there's something of a double-standard here? Maybe the government could spend its time in much more constructive (though, politically, more challenging) ways, by taking on some real wrong-doers (e.g., Size, Inc. v. Network Solutions, Inc., No. 03-CV-026-A (E.D. Va. Apr. 1, 2003), handed down appropriately on April Fools' Day, shows that the problem of reliability and stability in the domain name assignment system was hardly isolated to the Kremen v. Cohen, No. 01-15899, __ F.3d __ (9th Cir. July 25, 2003), episode)—instead of spending resources on easy 'symbolic' scapegoat targets like Zuccarini, or numerous 'hackers' who have regularly been screwed over by the 'justice' system.

The very same incentives that Verisign and AOL are, evidently, celebrated for responding to, in the pages of the Wall Street Journal, are the same ones that Zuccarini is condemned for embracing. Then again, Martha Stewart is being prosecuted under the securities laws and Ken Lay isn't. Go figure. 

With all of the lawsuits and finger pointing going around these days over domain names and the uses of these names, something occurs to me.

We are becoming a society that’s goal seems to be making ourselves totally free of any responsibility.  We don’t want to be responsible for our children’s actions or our own.  Even if this means giving up freedom after freedom and pushing this country to the point of communism.  All the crying and finger pointing is only leading to more and more legislation which is robbing every one of rights, not just the “bad guys”.  I don’t think most Americans realize that in “protecting” themselves with legislation, they are signing away freedom and it is very difficult to take it back once it is gone.

If a child has unsupervised access to the internet within their own home and comes across a page (perhaps pornography) that the parents are offended by, who is to blame?  Well, the parents who are crying about it will tell you that it is certainly not their fault or the fault of the “innocent child”.  They want the person who created the offensive site to be blamed and punished!  Are parents so lazy now days that they can’t monitor their child while they are on the internet?  The short answer; Yes.

I have become sick with parents blaming everyone from video game creators, musicians, movie makers to web site creators for their children’s bad behavior.  Here’s a wacky idea….why don’t you raise your child and participate in their life?  Parents need to stop expecting the government and the school district to raise their children for them.  You can’t take away everyone’s rights in this country to facilitate you not wanting to raise your own child. 

Parents seem to want the government to just make everything that they don’t want their children to have illegal, this way they don’t have to pay attention to their child!  When I hear of a disturbed teenager killing a handful of his classmates of course it troubles me.  But, what troubles me even more is when I hear the parents say “He did it because he played this violent video game too much”.  Excuse me Mom & Dad….who let him?

Buck up people.  Before you climb up onto your high horse ready to hold everyone you find offensive responsible for their actions, how about taking responsibility for your own first?

Looking at the criminal complaint, it appears that the operation of Zuccarini's domain name had changed in a subtle, yet potentially significant way, since the Truth in Domain Names Act took effect. While all of the UDRP, ACPA, and FTC actions make for interesting reading, the fact of the matter is that all of those events preceded passage of the law under which Zuccarini was arrested. Anything he did before the law took effect is, of course, completely irrelevant to whether he is guilty under the law.

However, reading the statement of the postal inspector in the complaint, it appears (as it appears to me now on testing several names) that there were no pornographic pop-ups that resulted from merely typing in the domain name. What the complaint says is that a typographic error would result in the user being directed to a warning page which referred to "Adults Only" content, and provided the user with the opportunity to enter or not to enter. Then, the postal inspector clicked enter, and began the well-known journey into browser Hell.

If it is in fact true that Zuccarini was using misleading domain names in order to re-direct users to a warning page with no pornography on it, that is distinguishable from using a misleading domain name to re-direct users to actually view pornography. That second scenario is what the law forbids. But, once one has mistyped a domain name, and is then looking at a warning page distinguished by the absence of pornography on it, then one is no longer deceived about what is going to happen when one clicks "enter".

Let's see, people use a very bad piece of software that is designed with serious security flaws in it, like allowing someone to open 29 windows automatically and yet no one points a finger at the software?  Use any browser without the Microsoft name on it and blocking these types of ads is trivial.  Microsoft however, has no interest in giving users the tools to be able to evade popup ads, just as they have no interest in securing their software agains the tens of thousans of viruses which are unique to the Microsoft "experience." Get Linux, get FreeBSD, or best, get a Mac.  Either way, you ca say fareweel to popup ads and viruses.