Justice Antonin Scalia, in his majority opinion, argued that video games must be protected as free speech because of their status as art. This put them alongside things like books, film and music in the court’s eyes.

Another part of Scalia’s argument was that there was no precedent for the restriction of violence to children in the same way that there was a restriction to sexual imagery like pornography. The ruling basically said that it is OK to sell violent imagery to kids, but not sexual imagery.

This distinction has people talking, mostly about the hypocrisy of such a dichotomy. Why, in this country, do we demonize sex much more than violence? Are we a violent culture? Are our sexual sensibilities warped because of our puritanical beginnings? All of these questions were at the heart of Jon Stewart’s take on the SCOTUS ruling on last night’s episode of The Daily Show.

Talking over footage from a recent Mortal Kombat game where a woman is pulled apart at the groin and disemboweled, Stewart points out the strange nature of the ruling.

The U.S. Supreme Court determined seven to two that the State of California has no interest in restricting the sale of this game to children, but, if while being disemboweled this woman were to suffer perhaps a nip-slip – regulate away.

Stewart also debuts a new game for Wii that looks promising. Check it out below –

It seems as though people both agree and disagree with Stewart’s take on the SCOTUS decision. Check out these responses from Twitter –

So what do you guys think about the SCOTUS ruling? Is it hypocritical to allow our kids violence but shield them from anything sexual? Let us know how you feel.

The country, which has an 85 percent Muslim majority, has been at odds over the subject of pornography the last few years. "I think we all agree there’s no way we can save this nation by spreading pornography, violence and ethnic hostility," Information Minister Mohammad Nuh told reporters.

The new legislation called the Electronic Information and Transaction Law will allow Indonesia’s courts to accept digital material as evidence in case involving improper use of the Internet.  The law states that anyone caught sharing pornographic material, false news or racial and religious hate messages on the Internet could go to prison for up to six years and be fined $109,000.

An adviser for the information ministry said the government planned to start restricting sites hosting banned material next month. Software for blocking sites would be available on the ministry’s Web site for downloading and that direct blocking of offending sites was being consider.

Critics point out flaws in the new law. "I agree if the bill is aimed at protecting children from accessing adult sites. But I am afraid the police will see it as a chance to extort money from people receiving spam porn emails," Zatni Arbi of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences told the Jakarta Post.

He also pointed out that blocking pornographic sites would not work." The draft law may raise a good point but I am worried about the implementation. Censoring is not that easy, as violators can easily find tricks to access and provide porn sites," he said.
 

Porn site owners will now be able to rest easy knowing that they won’t have to let go of their .com domains anytime soon. Likewise, opposition from the religious realm proclaims victory in their efforts to thwart the mainstream appeal of pornography across the Internet.

In the minutes from today’s ICANN meeting, the board outlines its rationale for rejecting the domain proposal:

• ICM’s Application and the Revised Agreement fail to meet, among other things, the Sponsored Community criteria of the RFP specification.
• Based on the extensive public comment and from the GAC’s communiqués that this agreement raises public policy issues.
• Approval of the ICM Application and Revised Agreement is not appropriate as they do not resolve the issues raised in the GAC Communiqués, and ICM’s response does not address the GAC’s concern for offensive content, and similarly avoids the GAC’s concern for the protection of vulnerable members of the community. The Board does not believe these public policy concerns can be credibly resolved with the mechanisms proposed by the applicant.
• The ICM Application raises significant law enforcement compliance issues because of countries’ varying laws relating to content and practices that define the nature of the application, therefore obligating ICANN to acquire a responsibility related to content and conduct.
• The Board agrees with the reference in the GAC communiqué from Lisbon, that under the Revised Agreement, there are credible scenarios that lead to circumstances in which ICANN would be forced to assume an ongoing management and oversight role regarding Internet content, which is inconsistent with its technical mandate.

"This decision was the result of very careful scrutiny and consideration of all the arguments. That consideration has led a majority of the Board to believe that the proposal should be rejected,” said Dr. Vint Cerf, Chairman of ICANN.

With that brief statement, the debate over .xxx is finally put to rest.

Or is it?

Two ICANN board members have come out publicly against the decision to reject the .xxx top-level domain, alleging that the group’s decision stems from political pressures rather than established policies.

Susan Crawford had this to say about the extent of ICANN’s authority:

ICANN’s role in gTLD policy development is to seek to assess and articulate the broadly shared values of the internet community.  We have very limited authority and we can only speak on behalf of that community.  I am personally not aware that any global consensus against the creation of an .xxx domain exists.  In the absence of such a prohibition, and given our mandate to create TLD competition, we have no authority to block the addition of this TLD to the root.

Joi Ito gives his take:

ICANN should not be determining whether top level domains (TLDs) will solve the world’s problems or not. We were asked to review an application based on whether the application met the requirements of the Request for Proposal (RFP). My view is that the applicant met the requirements of the RFP and that not granting the applicant their request for the right to run the .xxx TLD is wrong.

It seems that, at least according to the board members who voted in support of the domain, all the sufficient criteria for inclusion were met, while those in opposition felt otherwise. There is speculation, however, that ICANN’s decision to reject the .xxx domain stems more from outside political pressure rather than the merits of the proposal alone.

Regardless, the issue is pretty much dead at this point. Those looking for more effective methods of blocking adult content will have to come up with a new plan. 

Proponents of the domain believe that it would simplify the process of blocking objectionable content. Rather than spend money and manpower on complicated filters and employee surveillance, companies could simply implement a blanket bat on all “.xxx” domains to prevent employees from access restricted content from their work machines.

Those throughout the porn industry, however, believe that such a domain could result in government regulation, and ultimately infringes upon free speech rights. Religious groups feel that a universally accepted domain would give legitimacy to the industry while also increasing the amount of adult oriented websites on the Internet.

Who would’ve ever imagined that the religious right would be siding with the porn industry?

In its current wording, however, the proposal makes switching to “.xxx” domains a voluntary procedure. While many sites are pre-registering names in order to prevent them from being taken, the likelihood of a widespread migration to the standard is not very high.

AP columnist Matt Moore had this to say about the proposal:

Given its voluntary nature, ".xxx" is unlikely to have much effect on parents’ ability to block porn sites. And because a domain name serves merely as an easy-to-remember moniker for a site’s actual numeric Internet address, even if its use is required, a child could simply punch in the numeric address of any blocked ".xxx" name.

Do you know any children that type in IP addresses into the navigation bar of their web browsers? I sure don’t. That reasoning seems a bit weak, especially given the fact that a precocious youngster who is smart enough to discover the IP of his or her favorite porn site would probably also be smart enough to get around a “.xxx” block anyway. 

This lawsuit, however, may take the proverbial cake.

A Massachusetts man has filed suit against the Redmond-based software company seeking compensatory and punitive damages stemming from, what the plaintiff asserts, breeches and data security and the failure of Internet Explorer to keep delete his browsing history and keep his Internet habits private.

The FBI raided this home of Michael Alan Crooker in 2004 amid reports that he was manufacturing resin, a substance commonly used in the process of constructing homemade explosives. As part of the raid, the FBI confiscated Crooker

The suit, which was filed by a minor and his parents, targets Yahoo and the man responsible for the Yahoo Group in question. The family is requesting $10 million in damages. According to Reuters, the suit claims Yahoo was at fault for allowing co-defendant Mark Bates to run the group, named Candyman, where thousands of visitors downloaded these materials.

In 2002, Bates plead guilty to charges that stemmed from his actions with the Yahoo Group. Apparently, pictures of the child who filed the lawsuit were posted on Bates’ Yahoo Group.

Spokespeople for Yahoo have stated they have not received notification of the filing and are holding comments at this time.

Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest search news.

Through implementation of the Child Exploitation Tracking System (CETS), which was developed by Microsoft Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), and the Toronto Police Service, global police forces will have a much easier time in the sharing of necessary information to root out child predators and pornographers.

According to Microsoft’s release:

The new tracking system has already resulted in the November 2004 arrest of one alleged Toronto child pornographer. He was identified and targeted during beta testing of the computerized database and investigation system.

The system was unveiled at a press conference on April 7, 2005 by RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli and Microsoft Vice President and Deputy General Counsel Nancy Anderson.

Microsoft Canada President David Hemler honored Gillespie Wednesday night for sparking collaboration with the police agencies by presenting him with a plaque engraved with the original e-mail plea he sent to Gates.

“Criminals are using the Internet at an unprecedented rate to exploit the most vulnerable of our society: our children,” said the Honourable Anne McLellan, Canadian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness. “I commend Canadian law enforcement and Microsoft Canada for their vision and leadership in creating a tool unlike any other in the world that will help keep our children safe from online predators.”

Ernie Allen, president and CEO of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children feels this system is much needed and completely welcomed. This is indicated in is statement, which says,

“Thanks to the generosity and leadership of Microsoft and the vision of the Toronto Police Service and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, law enforcement across Canada and soon worldwide will employ a cutting-edge tool to address the epidemic of online child sexual exploitation

“We at the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children and our U.S.-based sister agency, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, applaud this historic innovation, and commit to work with Microsoft and our Canadian allies to expand CETS worldwide.”

Hopefully, CETS will do exactly what it was designed to do: curb, if not totally strangle online child pornography, while giving law enforcement officials a tool necessary to share this information.

Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest search news.