House Passes Bill Restricting Access to Popular Web Sites
Jul 27, 2006
The House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly, 410-15, in favor of the Deleting Online Predators Act of 2006, otherwise known as DOPA. As we posted earlier this month, DOPA was intended to thwart online predators by preventing minors from accessing social networking sites like MySpace.com from schools and libraries that receive federal funding.
However, according to a report by Declan McCullagh in News.com, "the definition of off-limits Web sites is so broad the bill would probably sweep in thousands of commercial Web sites that allow people to post profiles, include personal information and allow 'communication among users."
The bill calls on the FCC to decide which sites are restricted, and Declan points out that sites like Amazon and News.com could be part of the ban under the current language.
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