One of the more troubling problems, and a significant challenge, is protecting children from accessing “obscene” material. Since the definition of obscenity is difficult to apply it further goes that it is difficult to prohibit children from viewing it. CIPA’s purpose is to protect minors from accessing offensive material (obscene material, child pornography, and anything harmful to minors). Many of the legitimate pornographic websites have all adopted the .xxx domain, making it easy to filter and prevent unauthorized access to them. However, many pornographic websites have not adopted this new domain and are readily accessible by anyone. Certainly, some of them have put the “Are you 18?” option on their landing page, but let’s face the truth; they have no way of confirming the actual age of the viewer. Do you think that pornographic web sites should be required to convert to the .xxx domain? If they all did, would this solve the problem? Should the owners of the websites that have not converted be prosecuted under the CIPA law? Remember, you are not being asked if pornographic websites should be allowed on the Internet or not, that question was answered by the 1st Amendment.
There is no way that we can allow the top level domain to be mandated upon any type of website. The divisiveness and segregation that would ensue wouldn’t reflect the premises of free trade. It’s almost a certainty that those domains would receive lower prioritization, if not exclusion, and suffer higher registration costs.
Also, if a website serves two purposes, would they be expected to register another domain name for a fraction of their website for something subjective that may be difficult to define as pornographic. Like the famous opinion of Supreme Court Justice Stewart “I know it when I see it.”
Furthermore, CIPA is only applicable to public access points, like libraries and educational facilities. When such facilities are entrusted with children, it becomes their responsibility to keep them safe, just as it is the parents responsibility at home. If parents don’t want their children viewing pornographic material, they should change their rearing methods, not attempt to change the internet.