Once agai, Congress has shown how clueless it is when it comes to the Internet. Here a quote from a News.com article:
The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a bill saying that anyone offering an open Wi-Fi connection to the public must report illegal images including “obscene” cartoons and drawings–or face fines of up to $300,000.
That broad definition would cover individuals, coffee shops, libraries, hotels, and even some government agencies that provide Wi-Fi. It also sweeps in social-networking sites, domain name registrars, Internet service providers, and e-mail service providers such as Hotmail and Gmail, and it may require that the complete contents of the user’s account be retained for subsequent police inspection.
Such a bill, if signed in to law, would cripple the Internet. Gee, I guess then would wouldn’t have to worry about falling so far behind the rest of the world in broadband development. but at least the children will be “safe”…
Wow! That is staggeringly idiotic.
It’s good that it’ll only affect coffee shops and hotels that offer Wi-Fi. Gee, think of what that the Congress could do to web hosting services.
By the way, what was their definition of obscene?
>>By the way, what was their definition of obscene?
Probably something intentionally vague