A unanimous panel of judges of the 3rd US Circuit Court of
Appeals last week upheld a preliminary injunction that barred
enforcement of the Child Online Protection Act (COPA). The Act
requires commercial web sites to collect and process a credit card
number or some other access code as proof of age before allowing
internet users to view online material deemed harmful to
minors.
The Court took issue with the law’s use of “community
standards”. Judge L.I. Garth wrote:
“Because material posted on the [World Wide]
Web is accessible by all Interet users worldwide, and because
current technology does not permit a Web publisher to restrict
access to its site based on the geographic locale of each
particular Internet user, COPA essentially requires that every Web
publisher subject to the statute abide by the most restrictive and
conservative state's community standards in order to avoid criminal
liability,"
The Court also said that the law places an undue economic burden
on publishers who would have to pay for a screening system and
could lose users who did not want to register. Judge Garth added
the law was a “laudatory attempt” by Congress “to achieve its
compelling objective of protecting minors from harmful material on
the World Wide Web” but said that it will probably be ruled
unconstitutional.
