http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/coppa.htm - Federal Trade Commission Guide http://www.ftc.gov/ogc/coppa1.htm - Full text of COPPA This thread is not about other US Federal legislation relating to porn sites - those arguments would depend on citable case law that holds DMOZ liable for posting links to non-compliant sites as opposed to publishing the material itself. No such case law appears to exist. This is instead about the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act and the ODP's apparent disregard for its provisions. Since the ODP has a Kids and Teens section then it is clear the web site is directed at children in part. There is also actual knowledge that it is collecting personal information from children since some editors have revealed their ages in forums. The information collected is full name and email address which brings it into scope on that score. This means there is a requirement to comply with the Act and display a privacy notice, the content of which is mandated, and to obtain verifiable parental consent. Yet the ODP patently fails to comply with the Act. Until recently no-one had had enforcement action taken against them and the Act has come in for criticism for being apparently unenforceable. Nevertheless the US Federal Trade Commission has managed to do it, and on 7 September 2006 fined Xanga US$1,000,000 for infringements of COPPA in respect of allowing creation of accounts by children without parental consent. The ODP does have a privacy policy at http://dmoz.org/termsofuse.html but this does not comply with COPPA in terms of content or placement. I have seen brief internal argument by an Administrator that requiring age declarations would be unenforceable and this is that same argument used by other opponents of the legislation. This is the only reason given for the ODP not enacting age declarations. To be fair, if the ODP did comply with COPPA then it would be forced to bring parents of editors into the equation and with the existence of hard core porn listings, that their child could easily gain editing rights to by default, virtually all parents would not only refuse permission to edit but ban their child from using the site altogether. Thus it would have a negative impact on both editor numbers and ODP reputation. There are two answers to this. Remove Kids and Teens and enact a policy forbidding editors under the age of 13. Or remove Adult branch and other categories that parents would be disturbed to learn were included in the ODP so parental consent would be likely. ODP cannot have it both ways and in doing so deliberately ignore US law. The dangerous positions held by DMOZ in respect of child editors was something I raised internally last December along with the need for proper risk management within the organisation. This was dismissed by an Administrator as silly and, at a later point, of frightening "squeamish" editors. Perhaps now Xanga have been fined US$1,000,000 the risk should be taken more seriously. There can be no excuses, DMOZ Administrators were warned nine months ago of the need to carry out proper risk management in this respect and have clearly failed to do so, or, if they have then they have failed to implement the required actions. Either way it is negligence.
DMOZ ignoring another federal law, what a surprise, NOT. I think the real surprise will be the day that DMOZ decides to start to operate inside the law.
This one has actually resulted in an organisation being fined for not doing exactly what DMOZ doesn't do. And it is a corporate action rather than something that could be blamed on editors acting beyond their authority if push came to shove, in which case the disclaimers would allow DMOZ to pass the legal buck onto the editors themselves.
You really are a a**hole of the first order. There is no defence for the lack of protection of kids within DMOZ and never will be until it is put right. Who was it that first raised this matter internally? And who was it brought the existence of pedophile chat rooms to this forum? Not you. As far as I can see you have contributed precisely zero of any value on the subject.
I am not the one who has intentions in becoming an editor again nor aspires becoming an Admin, Meta or Senior Editor. Just be absolute specific with your intentions. No twisting. No smokescreen. No bafflegab. No cover ups.
I have no intentions of becoming an editor again - nothing has changed since I resigned as editall (senior editor) nor is likely to change to a degree where I would want to become an editor again. Neither have I ever wanted meta, and certainly not an Admin position given I have disagreed with the concept of Admins from the day it was introduced. Is that clear enough for you? On the other hand I do have an intention to raise the risks and issues that DMOZ management should have been managing and have failed to do so. If there is to be a future for the project then getting those risks and issues out in the open is the only way they can be resolved and the only way forward. Is that clear enough for you? No? Why did you sneak back in again then? Don't bother answering, it was a rhetorical question. Do you have any comments that are anything to do with the opening post or are you just trolling? P.S. Nice diversionary tactics - if one believed in conspiracies one might think you were bidding for an Admin role yourself...
What a strange and totally screwed up country we live in (United States). We allow children to get birth control pills and obtain abortions without their parents knowledge, but we forbid them from going to porn sites and punish the website owners when they (the children) lie about their age to get into them. My daughter is 12 years old. She faked her age as 14 to myspace.com to obtain an account. If I hadn't checked my computer, I would have had no idea that she was using it. IMyspace did delete the account when I contacted them. What a truly screwed up country we live in - our morals have gone right into the toilet.
If the kids are getting into the position where they need birth control without their parents' knowledge then the parent-child relationship is not what it should be. At the same time reality dictates if such things are not available then teenage pregnancy is the alternative. I guess it is a question of the lesser of two evils. Barrier contraception also prevents the spread of STDs so it is a public health as well as a moral issue. If the site owner has taken every reasonable precaution then they should not be punished. If they don't take precautions then they deserve whatever punishment they get.
As brizzie mentioned, if the web site owners take precautions to avoid the situation then they will not be punished; but the same way that adult editors ignore the Federal laws and list sites without 2257 declaration that encourages the involvement of minors in porn, ODP has chosen to ignore the law and the risks of giving minors access to adult material for their own benefit and they deserve what ever they get.
I think that the problem goes back to accepting responsibility. We teach children that they can do whatever they want to - they can get abortions, they can get birth control without parental knowledge, they can blame their neighbor (or parrent) falsely and never get into trouble. In the name of protecting children, the government has made it a nightmare to raise a child in today's world. Parents are still responsible for everything thiier kids do, and the website owners are responsible evn if a child lies about their age and enters their site. When I was brought up (yes, we did have electricity and runnng water) parents knew everything their children were doing. If you got into trouble, your parents knew about it before you got home. No one ever blamed someone else for their child doing something wrong. Today, kids do whatever the hell they want to do, and parents are left in the dark. Parents are supposed to be responsible for what their kids do, but the government has effectively covered their eyes to make sure they are kept in the dark. They then punish the parents when the kids does something wrong. You know what my beliefs about the Adult category are, I don't have to repeat them here. Other then banning all porn sites from the internet, what the heck can we do?
This is total baffle gab to make this about government or parental responsibility. Did the government forced DMOZ to have an adult section? Did the government forced DMOZ not to restrict children access to adult section? How do parents suppose to know that their children are exposed to porn while ODP does it's best to hide the facts about it? This is not about free speech, it is not about government over stepping it's authority or the responsibility of parents in upbringing their children. This is simply about an organization that selfishly decides to expose minors to porn for it's own benefit. Nobody is asking to make porn illegal and tramp on the rights of the adults, the law only states that organization such as ODP should not expose minors to such material. I think this is a reasonable demand, don't you?
None. You know why because he has NONE. For sometime now, gworld has succesfully hid his identity. Let say he is just smarter than you and me and will remain so.
This is more from the FTA's website and gives advice on the point of age falsification. Remember that there is a DMOZ section, Kids and Teens, that targets children and teens, and child editors have been known. I have a website that targets teens. How does COPPA affect my practices? Although your site targets teens, you may still attract a substantial number of children protected by COPPA. The Commission has urged all sites to provide fair information practices for all consumers, so personal information collected from even your older children should be given such protections. At a minimum, however, you should identify which visitors are under 13 -- for example, simply ask age (or birth year) when you invite visitors to provide personal information or to create their log-in user ID. Most importantly, ask age in such a way as not to invite falsification. You can also use a session cookie to prevent children from back clicking to change their age once they realize that parental consent is required to collect their information for the activity. Once you identify those under 13, you have a number of options. First, you can collect their parent's email address to provide direct notice and implement the COPPA parental consent requirements; or, if you are only collecting an email address, it may fall within one of the email exceptions to prior parental consent. (Note that several of the email exceptions do require that you provide notice to the parent and an opportunity to opt-out.) Alternatively, if you do not wish to implement the COPPA protections for your younger visitors, then your data system could be configured to automatically delete the personal information of those visitors under 13, and simply direct those children to content that does not involve information collection. It is very important to design your information collection in such a way that children are not encouraged to provide a false age. For example, if the log-in registration only permits the visitor to enter birth years starting with age 13, children may be encouraged to falsify their ages. In addition, telling visitors that children under 13 should not provide their information or that they must ask their parents first, may only encourage children to provide their information. If your site does not invite falsification, however, then it will not be responsible if a child misstates his or her age. Thus, as long as DMOZ is careful in how it implemented COPPA, it would not be held responsible for children who tell fibs. There appears also to be a common myth that COPPA has been ruled unconstitutional or has been challenged as being unconstitutional. The FTC give clear information on this. COPPA has not ever been challenged. What people are confusing it with is the Children's Online Protection Act or COPA. Sounds similar but the word Privacy in the middle make them different.
Add to that mix the present or ex editors that defended pedophilia and listed those sites and what a great place for parents to permit their children to visit.
Hmmm! And to think I only resigned because I personally felt it was morally and ethically wrong to give automatic permission to underaged editalls to edit the adult section. Thanks for opening my eyes once again brizzie. I never dreamed that the internal policies of DMOZ were actually illegal where the protection of kids is concerned.
I agree. That is something DMOZ has repeatedly failed to do. See Social Responsibility on the Net: DMOZ Declines and Mandated Social Responsibility on the Net. Let me know when you've done something to address those issues, gboisseau.
Minstrel, be kind to gboisseau. He and neb are working very hard on not doing anything. Haven't you seen the result of all their hard work such as abusive editors that are NOT removed or listings and guideline problems that are NOT fixed?
Still I see no concrete information that would result in an editor being removed for abuse. Links to your previous posts offer nothing more then your responses here. BTW, I will not set foot in Adult and imo, that whole category could go away and I would not shed a tear.