The proposal was approved by voice vote. It carries a penalty of up to two years' imprisonment or up to four years if the misleading domain name is used with the intent to deceive a minor into viewing "material that is harmful to minors".
For operators of adult sites, the draft law could be expensive. It gives little guidance on what names will be deemed misleading, other than saying that a domain name including a word or words to indicate the sexual content of the site, such as "sex" or "porn", is not misleading. So, it would appear to affect a site like Whitehouse.com, which is an adult site best known for drawing traffic from those seeking the Government site Whitehouse.gov. How far it will affect generic domain names remains to be seen.
Also yesterday, by 406 votes to 15, the House voted to narrow the definition of child pornography contained in the Child Abduction Prevention Act (CAPA) of 1996. The proposed amendment creates new obscenity offences to cover virtual and real child pornography that involves visual depictions of pre-pubescent children and minors and strengthens penalties for repeat offenders.
The latter change follows a decision by the US Supreme Court that struck down the original form of the 1996 law, which banned nude images of computer-generated minors. The Court considered that it was drafted too widely and therefore fell foul of the Constitution's right of free speech.
President Bush said after the vote: "I look forward to the legislation reaching my desk as quickly as possible so that I may sign it into law." The law will go before President Bush if and when it is approved by the Senate.
The misleading domain name proposal is at:
www.house.gov/rules/pence.pdf?tag=nl
The child pornography definition proposal is at:
www.house.gov/rules/smith.pdf?tag=nl