COPYCENSE

“The American Libraries Association is fighting congressional efforts to limit access to MySpace and other social networking tools on the Internet.

“A congressional delegation calling itself the Suburban Caucus introduced legislation last week to prevent schools and libraries from allowing minors to log onto MySpace and other social networking sites, saying they have become feeding grounds for sexual predators. The Deleting Online Predators Act is one of several bills aimed at satisfying suburban voters, who ranked child safety and gas prices high on a list of concerns in a recent poll.

“The bill would remove federal funding from schools and libraries that allowed children unsupervised access to sites that could reveal objectionable material. The restrictions would apply to all sites that feature user profiles and discussion. In other words, they would prohibit minors’ unsupervised school and library access to instant messaging, many e-mail services, chat rooms and social networking sites.

“The ALA issued a statement Monday in which its president Michael Gorman described House Rule 5319 as too broad, redundant, and unnecessary.”

K.C. Jones. Libraries Fight Limits On Networking Sites. TechWeb News. May 15, 2006.

See also:

American Library Association. ALA Opposes “Deleting Online Predators Act.” (press release) May 15, 2006.

Declan McCullagh. Congress Targets Social Network Sites. News.com. May 10, 2006.

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the law, business, and technology of digital content. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.