XXX? R? PG-13? Web Labeling Law: What Lays Ahead?

There has been recent buzz over the proposed legislation for the Child Pornography and Obscenity Prevention Amendments 2006.  Under these new amendments wed site operators would have to post a warning on their pages in order to alert web surfers about the "sexually explicit" material the web site contains.  The article describes sexually explicit material as anything from sexual intercourse to masturbation to "sadistic abuse" and finally to close ups of fully clothed genital regions.  I don't know about you, but to me that sounds a bit vague in descritption.  Once again we are left with a broad description of what cassifies as sexually explicit. 

People.com which is a web site i frequently visit to catch up on my celebrity gossip, sometimes has explicit pictures of stars kissing or even cover shots of stars from explicit covers from magazines such as ELLE, Rolling Stone, and VOUGE.  Stars are sometimes depicted half naked on these covers, which are displayed on magazine stands nationwide.  If these new laws are implemented, material that is safe to put on magazine stands will be condemned on the internet.  

While I do tend to agree with the idea that parental controls are needed so that children are not taken advantage of via the internet, I think until we more clearly define what constitutes as sexually explicit, a lot of web sites are going to be blocked and rated as r or even XXX.

The new proposed legislation also discusses the possibility of internet services keeping better record of customer's activity to help aide in in future prosecutions.  I think this is a complete breach of the right to privacy.  Should this law come to pass I think there would be a lot of controversey surrounding it.  The very thought of the government having this type of access to our private lives cannot and should not go on. 

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