Representing the Kids of America

U.S. legislators have dished up the same old "Dot Kids" bill that ICANN wouldn't swallow last year. Naturally, the 2002 version of the legislation that seeks to create a child-safe name space on the Web remains just as unpalatable to the online community as it did in 2001.

by Julie Wheeler [April 18, 2002]

The U.S. House of Representatives is at it again. Legislators have a proposal on the table to add another new sub-domain to the just recently commissioned .us country code. The proposed sub-domain is .kids.us.

If the bill becomes law, Congress would require that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) compel NeuStar.com, the .us registry, to add .kids.us to its menu of available domains. This legislative move to create an online safe haven for kids is hardly surprising. Representative John Shimkus (R-Ill.) and his cohorts have been banging the drum to add naming space for the kiddies since last June. That's when Shimkus and Edward Markey (R-Mass.) introduced the Dot Kids Domain Name Act of 2001 [HR-2417]. Of course, that piece of legislation wasn't asking for a second-level domain, it would of required that .kids receive top-level domain (TLD) naming status.

Since the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) rejected all of the .kids applications for rollout in its testbed phase while allocating new domain name space in November 2000, these two representatives decided that they could speed the entire selection process by demanding that the Department of Commerce (DoC) order ICANN to immediately hold another round of applications for .kids name space before any other new top-level domain could be selected.

While Rep. Shimkus was confident that the legislation was needed for the safety of kids on the Net, ICANN officials scoffed at the idea, and the bill never made it out of the House.

However, it seems at least portions of the original bill have been resurrected to form the underlying premise of the Dot Kids Implementation and Efficiency Act of 2002 [HR-3833]. Representatives Shimkus and Markey, along with a gaggle of other legislators, introduced the revised bill to the House on March 4, 2002.

The new and improved version of the bill narrows the .kids scope to the United States rather than a global TLD. This is a wise move on the part of legislators, since it will be difficult enough to nail down the American publics' perceptions of what Web material is acceptable for children, let alone trying to corral the entire world's thoughts on the subject.

The 2002 proposal also better defines kids as "anyone under the age of 13," while last year's version of the same attempted to round up "any person under 17 years of age."

Even though these changes in the original legislation greatly increase the likelihood that the 2002 dot-kids legislation will at least survive the House, this year's proposal has the same inherent problem as last year's—it only makes it possible to block out inappropriate material for kids on computers over which you have control. And according to Rep. Shimkus, these computers are not the bills primary concern.

The same parents willing to employ a .kids domain would probably also be willing to use existing parental controls. The problem computers—the ones at libraries, cyber cafes and other public facilities—cannot be controlled without limiting access to the rest of the adult population. This is simply something that cannot be done without destroying the intent of the Internet for both kids and adults.

Smaller fish to fry
Rep. Shimkus is going after a much smaller market now, which might make it an easier path for the legislation. Trying to force the hand of a brand new registry like NeuStar.com could be much easier than trying to force ICANN to take action. However, the .kids.us addition to NeuStar's plan for .us name space will probably cost the company a fair amount of cash to implement and manage. Even though the bill calls for NTIA to "carry out a program to publicize the availability of the new domain and to educate the parents of minors," the registry may protest.

Another issue the NeuStar.com registry may have to face is convincing registrars to offer the sub-domain. The bill requires registrars to enter into a written agreement to ensure that "use of the new domain is in accordance with the standards and rules of the registry."

As a company registering .us names in an environment where registrants are no longer forced to put up with long strings of second-, third- or even fourth-level domains, why would anyone want to support such a complicated and stringent space as .kids.us promises to be?

Congressional controls
You may be asking yourself why it's such a big deal to have a .kids.us subdomain, or even why it would be so awful to have a .kids top-level domain.? The answer is, it probably wouldn't be a big deal if the market were demanding such a Net-bound safe haven for kids.

The faultiest part this legislation and why it will fail even if it does become law is that Congress is trying create demand for a service that undermines parental control of kids on computers. When Rep. Shimkus and his cronies tried to push the 2001 version of the bill through the House, an ICANN official said that the group was unconcerned by the action because "the DoC is supportive of the privatization effort, so I can' t imagine it would approve something that would go against that."

Of course, that statement is thought-provoking not only from the standpoint of a .kids domain, but on many other levels, as well. Especially since the old argument that the DoC handed the management of domain name space over to ICANN with the expressed intent to privatize its operation and remove it from the government's grasp is not holding water anymore. At least not since ICANN is currently in the process of governmentalizing its operations.

Like the fate of ICANN, the fate of developing the .kids.us second-level domain space has yet to be determined. Though the House Committee on Energy and Commerce has ordered that the bill receive markup review, no vote on actualizing the legislation is scheduled at this time. So until Congress can provide a safe place for kids to play on the Internet, I guess we'll just have to leave it up to parents of these would-be .kids.us of America.

—End