26 Jun 2000, 12:00 am
A unanimous panel of judges of the 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals last week upheld a preliminary injunction that barred enforcement of the Child Online Protection Act (COPA). The Act requires commercial web sites to collect and process a credit card number or some other access code as proof of age before allowing internet users to view online material deemed harmful to minors.
The Court took issue with the law’s use of “community standards”. Judge L.I. Garth wrote:
“Because material posted on the [World Wide] Web is accessible by all Interet users worldwide, and because current technology does not permit a Web publisher to restrict access to its site based on the geographic locale of each particular Internet user, COPA essentially requires that every Web publisher subject to the statute abide by the most restrictive and conservative state's community standards in order to avoid criminal liability,"
The Court also said that the law places an undue economic burden on publishers who would have to pay for a screening system and could lose users who did not want to register. Judge Garth added the law was a “laudatory attempt” by Congress “to achieve its compelling objective of protecting minors from harmful material on the World Wide Web” but said that it will probably be ruled unconstitutional.