From: "E. ALLEN SMITH" <EALLENSMITH@ocelot.Rutgers.EDU>
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 1996 09:06:37 +0800
To: tcmay@got.net
Subject: Re: SurfWatch
Message-ID: <01I259NQ7CKWAKTUGH@mbcl.rutgers.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


From:	IN%"tcmay@got.net"  8-MAR-1996 20:20:53.36

>>The question I have is if these systems were widely implemented, could
>>an Web page author or provider of content be sued for "mislabeling"
>>their page?  If so, under what circumstances?  Could the RSAC attach

>Again, I ask about what sort of _contract_ is involved? (In my case, none.
>So, suppose I decide that my post, explaining the fraud that is Islam,
>should be read by all Muslims. AllahAllowed, an Islamic rating service, is
>upset. Just what is their recourse? I have no contract with them and have
>not arranged to label my posts. So, who can sue? The government? Try the
>First Amendment.

	Given various anti-obscenity laws that the idiot Supreme Court has
already found constitutional (including those against providing "indecent"
material to minors), I wouldn't depend on the First Amendment. Here are some
scenarios under which rating services could turn into bona-fide censorship
(by the governmental limiting of information access definition):
	A. The government threatens ISPs with more direct censorship (a la the
CDA) unless they force their users to rate their pages with some such service.
	B. The government finds someone guilty of providing indecent materials
to minors for not having put a rating on their web pag using some such company
- or even all the companies' rating systems. I.e., under nonsense such as
attractive nuisance laws.
	C. The government (a la the V chip) requires a rating system, or one
of a collection of "government-approved" rating systems, for all web pages.
	D. The government in a country such as China uses rating systems to
help them filter.
	E. The government uses already-existing ratings to easier find web
pages to shut down upon its instituting a censorship plan. (This is the gun
registration argument).

These last two don't mean that people shouldn't be permitted to create rating
systems for obscenity/whatever - just that responsible people shouldn't
encourage them in doing so. Now, except for the last two, these can be gotten
around by being in the right country (one not doing such evil acts), but it
would be preferable if that weren't the only way to avoid them. Discouraging
rating systems in the first place can help to do so.
	Please note that I'm making a distinction between rating systems
involving placement on the web page to be rated, and other ones. The
keyword-based ones get around the above arguments (except possibly D and E).
as do the central database ones in which someone else is doing the rating.
(They do not get around the question of whether parents should be permitted to
restrict children's information access on grounds such as obscenity at all.
Given that no harm has ever been proven from children's viewing such material
(_possibly_ unlike the data on violence, although that is quite disputable and
not an argument for censorship), whether parents properly have that degree of
sovereignty over their children is questionable. Children are not the property
of their parents.
	-Allen