All it took was his children playing with a friends' computer and hitting a porn site by mistake to give Rep. Christopher Cox the idea that adult-oriented Internet sites could use a separate new domain off-limits to children.
The California Republican didn't stop at making sure his children's new computers didn't have Internet access - he went to work on legislation promoting the separation of adults-only material from general Internet material.
A longtime champion of keeping the Web tax- and other government-interference-free, Cox says he's working on a package to make a voluntary adult domain, which he says would be a good defense against any lawsuit or charge that an adult site corrupts morals, says the Orange County Register.
Cox is writing the bill with a frequent Internet-related legislative ally, Oregon Democratic Senator Ron Wyden. The Cox proposal would be somewhat similar to real world zoning which keeps adult businesses away from neighborhoods. Supporters hope, the Register says, that adult site owners would be motivated to relocate to the adult-only domain to avoid criminal corrupting-minors charges and because their customers would frequent sites on the domain.
Cox says Internet service providers and browsers could equip themselves with a yes or no button to block the adult domain.
But a Sacramento, CA lobbyist for the adult industry, Michael Ross, says the Cox proposal is step one toward government regulation of the Internet, forcing adult site owners (he is one himself) through competition to post on the new domain, but they'd likely keep their existing .com sites as well, the Register says.
