[Congressional Bills 110th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 1086 Introduced in Senate (IS)]







110th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                S. 1086

 To provide stronger protections to parents regarding their children's 
        access to sexually explicit material over the Internet.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                             April 11, 2007

 Mr. Baucus (for himself and Mr. Pryor) introduced the following bill; 
    which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, 
                      Science, and Transportation

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To provide stronger protections to parents regarding their children's 
        access to sexually explicit material over the Internet.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Cyber Safety for Kids Act of 2007''.

SEC. 2. PROHIBITION ON COMMERCIAL WEBSITES CONTAINING MATERIAL THAT IS 
              HARMFUL TO MINORS.

    (a) In General.--No person who operates a website located on the 
Internet where such website is primarily operated for commercial 
purposes may knowingly, and with knowledge of the character of the 
material, place material that is harmful to minors on such website 
unless--
            (1) the home page, or any other page or screen that is 
        initially viewable by a visitor to such website, does not 
        include any material that is harmful to minors;
            (2) access to any such material is restricted to a specific 
        set of individuals through an age verification requirement; and
            (3) the source code of such website contains the content 
        description tag assigned to such website by the National 
        Telecommunications and Information Administration.
    (b) NTIA Description Tag.--Not later than 90 days after the date of 
enactment of this Act, the National Telecommunications and Information 
Administration shall develop a common content description tag that--
            (1) will provide consumers with advance warning and 
        information about the content of any website that contains 
        material that is harmful to minors;
            (2) will allow consumers, based on such tag, to block or 
        filter access to, and display of, any website that contains 
        material that is harmful to minors; and
            (3) is technologically capable of being embedded into the 
        source code a website.

SEC. 3. REGISTRATION REQUIREMENTS.

    (a) In General.--Any operator of a website who seeks to register 
such website, or who is required to re-register any existing website 
with ICANN, shall, at a minimum and in addition to any other 
information required by ICANN, provide to ICANN the following:
            (1) The name of such operator.
            (2) The Uniform Resource Locator or URL for such website.
            (3) The Internet Protocol address for such website.
            (4) The content description tag of such website under 
        section 2(b).
    (b) NTIA Action Required.--Not later than 30 days after the date of 
the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Commerce, acting through 
the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, shall--
            (1) enter into any memorandums of understanding, 
        agreements, and contracts with ICANN, as may be necessary to 
        carry out the requirement under subsection (a); and
            (2) make any amendments to any existing memorandums of 
        understandings, agreements, and contracts with ICANN, as may be 
        necessary to carry out the requirement under subsection (a).

SEC. 4. ENFORCEMENT.

    (a) Violation.--Any person who violates this Act shall be subject 
to such civil penalties as the Secretary of Commerce shall prescribe.
    (b) Enforcement.--The Secretary of Commerce shall have the power to 
enforce the provisions of this Act, including--
            (1) any requirements or limitations applicable to a 
        registrant under section 3; and
            (2) the imposition and collection of civil penalties under 
        subsection (a).

SEC. 5. DEFINITIONS.

    In this Act, the following definitions shall apply:
            (1) ICANN.--The term ``ICANN'' means the Internet 
        Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.
            (2) Internet.--The term ``Internet'' means the combination 
        of computer facilities and electromagnetic transmission media, 
        and related equipment and software, comprising the 
        interconnected worldwide network of computer networks that 
        employ the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol or 
        any successor protocol to transmit information.
            (3) Material that is harmful to minors.--The term 
        ``material that is harmful to minors'' means any communication, 
        picture, image, graphic image file, article, recording, 
        writing, or other matter of any kind that is obscene, or that a 
        reasonable person would find--
                    (A) taking the material as a whole and with respect 
                to minors, is designed to appeal to, or is designed to 
                pander to, the prurient interest;
                    (B) depicts, describes, or represents, in a manner 
                patently offensive with respect to minors--
                            (i) an actual or simulated sexual act or 
                        sexual contact;
                            (ii) an actual or simulated normal or 
                        perverted sexual act; or
                            (iii) a lewd exhibition of the genitals or 
                        post-pubescent female breast; and
                    (C) taking the material as a whole, lacks serious 
                literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for 
                minors.
            (4) Minor.--The term ``minor'' means any person under 18 
        years of age.
            (5) Source code.--The term ``source code'' means the 
        combination of text and other characters comprising the 
        content, both viewable and non-viewable, of a webpage, 
        including any--
                    (A) website publishing language;
                    (B) programming language;
                    (C) protocol or functional content; and
                    (D) successor languages or protocols.
            (6) Tag.--The term ``tag'' means a descriptive keyword or 
        term associated with or assigned to a piece of information 
        (such as a picture, article, or video clip), that--
                    (A) describes such information; and
                    (B) enables keyword-based classification and 
                filtering of such information as required under this 
                Act.
            (7) Website.--The term ``website'' means any collection of 
        material placed in a computer server-based file archive so that 
        it is publicly accessible over the Internet using hypertext 
        transfer protocol, or any successor protocol.
                                 <all>