Why the Net is not child-safe

[David Goldstein <goldstein_david@yahoo.com.au>]

Hi all

While one of the main thrusts of this article from the The Times
regarding ISP negligence does not apply to countries with untimed
local calls as the so-called free-ISPs don't really exist in these
countries (see the final paragraph below), it could be an interesting
article to read, even if you don't agree with John Carr's views.

David

Why the Net is not child-safe
                       BY JOHN CARR
 Millions of children are signing up to the World Wide Web but the
Internet service providers who connect them take little interest in
who is online. Should they not be more responsible? It is easier for
a child in Britain to obtain unrestricted access to the Internet than
to sneak into an 18 film, rent a 15 video or buy a drink in a pub.
According to NOP, in December just under five million British
children aged between seven and 16 were going online regularly. More
than half had access at home as well as at school and soon it will be
100 per cent in both places. 

 Today the Home Office publishes the results of the Internet Crime
Forum's investigation of the dangers to children who go into online
chat rooms. The long-awaited report has been given added moment by
several recent and gruesome cases but it raises other more
fundamental questions. On what legal basis are children using the Net
in the first place, and what duty of care is owed them by the
Internet industry? To gain access to the Net you first need a Net
account. At work your firm will provide you with one. At home you
normally do it yourself and to date about 11 million of us have, with
the numbers still climbing steeply. The Internet service providers
(ISPs) operating in the domestic market expressly state that only
adults can join yet.

And the final paragraph says...

The law of negligence says we all have a duty of care that extends as
far as the reasonably foreseeable consequences of our actions. You do
not need to be Einstein to see what is coming and one suspects that,
when the first cases start to appear in British civil courts, it is
not only the law of negligence that will force ISPs to change both
their contracts and their practice.

See http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,76-100965,00.html for the
full article.


=====
David Goldstein
2/3 Belmont Ave, Glen Iris 3146, Australia
email: Goldstein_David@yahoo.com.au
phone: +61 3 9885 0601 (home)
       +61 418 228 605 (mobile)

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