The Child Protection Act, which required websites with adult material to verify visitors’ ages, was declared unconstitutional by the 3rd U.S. Circurt Court of Appeals. The law was passed in 1998 and has been under attack by groups such as the ACLU, who opposed it as censorship. The court found that the law was in violation of free speech rights since it was not the most effective method of keeping children from visiting adult websites.
The law prohibited the posting of material deemed harmful to minors on a website that is using the material for commercial purposes. The court found that the definition of the standards for material that was required to be hidden from open browsing was overbroad and would have required age verification for any material not suitable for a four-year-old.
The decision from the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court decision. The ACLU sued the government, arguing that the law criminalizes constitutionally protected speech, resulting in diverting pornography sites to non-U.S. servers, and preventing the spread of health information because of the requirement for people to enter sensitive information. The government will likely appeal the decision.
Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/AheadoftheCurve/Story?id=5428228&page=1
