One American law conceived in the full flower of cyberfear died a natural death this week. The 1998 Child Online Protection Act (COPA) was the successor to the similarly bad Communications Decency Act (CDA), aimed at keeping pornography away from children.
The First Amendment objections had been raised since Clinton signed the thing, not to mention the definitional problems (imagine quotes around "pornography", "away", and "children"). The Supreme Court didn't even bother going through the motions of ruling.
One good thing, looking back: "in the ten years since the law was passed, it has never been enforced."
I don't think that quote's accurate, I believe Xanga got fined $1,000,000 by the FTC for breaking the rules (although it might have just been an OOC settlement)
http://news.cnet.com/Xanga-fined-1-million-under-child-privacy-act/2100-1030_3-6113626.html
Posted by: guy | January 24, 2009 at 19:18