On November 13, the Senate approved, by unanimous consent, a bill (H.R. 3833) that would create a new Internet domain especially for children. On November 15, the House approved, by voice vote, the same bill, sending it to the President. Sponsored by Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and John Ensign (R-NV), the measure would require the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) within the U.S. Commerce Department to establish a second-level domain, .kids, under the top-level country code, .us, appropriate for children under age 13.
Every country has a two-letter country code top-level domain. For the United States, the country code top-level domain is .us. Under the legislation, the .kids.us site would contain material suitable only for minors, meaning that the material would be “wholesome, educational, informational, and entertaining.”
In October, the NTIA entered into a contract with NeuStar, Inc. to operate and improve the .us domain. NeuStar agreed to manage the new .kids.us second-level domain. However, at a Senate hearing on September 12, a representative from NeuStar expressed concerns regarding the impact of the legislation on the company (see The Source, 9/13/02).
While the final measure does not change the contract between NTIA and NeuStar, it makes some technical changes to the bill, as introduced, regarding NeuStar’s role in the next contract on the creation of the .kids.us sub-domain.
“Under this bill, participation in ‘dot-kids’ would be completely voluntary,” explained Sen. Dorgan. “Not only will whomever accepts the next contract know what they will be getting into, parents will choose to use it, and website operators will choose to be located within it,” he added.
Sen. Ensign agreed and stressed that the bill would pass constitutional muster. “We worked hard to craft the Dot Kids bill to withstand first amendment challenges by not imposing a burden on free speech to adults,” he said. “As such, it recognizes and protects the rights of those who wish to view content not suitable for minors outside of the Dot Kids subdomain,” he explained.
