New email address registries for “do not contact”
Utah and Michigan are the first two states to have both passed the legislation which is aimed at minors having access to otherwise unwanted, sexually explicit or violent electronic communications. Both e-mail address and the instant messenger contact will be entered in to a “do not contact” list which will be created. If for any reason, anyone in any state sends an electronic message, which contains offensive material to minors, to one of the contacts found on the list can face civil penalties and/or jail time. The Michigan list however, will only apply to advertisements. A small micro payment of about half a cent is all it will take for anyone to check if the contact is on the list. Then, a simple yes or no answer is sent back from the server without revealing any information about the queried contact.
One problem with this legislation is that it does not specifically state what kind of material is considered “harmful to minors”. This can become problematic with certain mass mailing organizations that may have questionable material in the contents of their messages. It also becomes a problem with private mail administrators and postmasters who now will need to find a way to secure their networks and make sure no one out of their group is sending “questionable” mail to minors on those lists.
Michigan children’s protection registry act (752.1061 - 752.1068.new)
H.B. 165 Substitute Child Protection Registry (Utah)
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10:34 pm June 27th, 2005
Utah and Michigan are the first two states to have both passed the legislation which is aimed at minors having access to otherwise unwanted, sexually explicit or violent electronic communications. Both e-mail address and the instant messenger contact will be entered in to a “do not contact” list which will be created. If for any reason, anyone in any state sends an electronic message, which contains offensive material to minors, to one of the contacts found on the list can face civil penalties and/or jail time. The Michigan list however, will only apply to advertisements. A small micro payment of about half a cent is all it will take for anyone to check if the contact is on the list. Then, a simple yes or no answer is sent back from the server without revealing any information about the queried contact.
One problem with this legislation is that it does not specifically state what kind of material is considered “harmful to minors”. This can become problematic with certain mass mailing organizations that may have questionable material in the contents of their messages. It also becomes a problem with private mail administrators and postmasters who now will need to find a way to secure their networks and make sure no one out of their group is sending “questionable” mail to minors on those lists.
Michigan children’s protection registry act (752.1061 - 752.1068.new)
H.B. 165 Substitute Child Protection Registry (Utah)
Gmail switch to Googlemail in the UK
Sprint Picture Mail site lets anyone log in
Google Base to compete with EBay
Google Earth - Beta
Microsoft has confirmed - existence of a third critical vulnerabiity in IE

