A survey by the University of New Hampshire (science art, industry, go Wildcats) on behalf of the American Academy of Pediatrics found 42% of 10-17 year olds had seen pornographic images in the previous 12 months, mostly by accident.
For a change the blogosphere did not completely freak out, despite attempts by some columnists to make us freak out. Sure there were exceptions, religious based experts claiming beaver shots will make you go blind (while the war on TV is no problem at all). The ZDNet discussion on the story was relatively benign.
The AAP spun it as an excuse to sell Microsoft Windows censorware.
Could it be a new maturity has hit the blogosphere? Maybe. Stories like this can still be picked up and spun weeks or months later, so we don’t know.
But there is one aspect of this whole thing that wasn’t mentioned, that I would like to cover here.
Namely, why the kids are seeing this.
It’s domain name speculation.
Speculators buy domain names which misspell common names people do want to go to. The misspelled sites become available to any hoser who wants to do anything.
Porn’s not the half of it. These sites are filled with malware, spyware, viruses, and fraud of all kinds.
No one is talking about it, because (supposedly) it’s commerce.
But they should be. Because it’s not. It’s crime. Crime subsidized by the clicks of kids.
I have long been an advocate for cracking down on domain name speculation. I remain one. It’s mainly useless and, we now know, it’s subsidized by criminals.
Too bad you won’t read that anywhere else. Worse, no one will do a damn thing about it. Don’t want to go up against the Verisign mafia.
Is Net Safety only good if its promoting a crack down on cybersquatting?
Is Net Safety only good if its promoting a crack down on cybersquatting?