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Opposition to Mandatory Government Warning Labels on Web Content

CDT today urged lawmakers to reject legislation that would force Internet speakers to place government-sanctioned warning labels on a broad range of online content. “Mandatory labeling of legal online content under threat of criminal sanction is ineffective, unwise, and unconstitutional,” CDT wrote in a pair of letters sent to the leaders of the Senate Commerce and Appropriations Committees. The language has been attached to a major telecommunications bill and more recently to an appropriations package. As written, the provision would apply to a broad range of Internet content, and could force online publishers to tag legal, and often socially valuable, material with a “digital scarlet letter.” CDT supports voluntary labeling efforts and has long endorsed the use of voluntary parental control tools such as filters.”

  • CDT Letter – Commerce [PDF] August 03, 2006
  • CDT Lettter – Appropriations [PDF] August 03, 2006
  • Deleting Online Predators Act of 2006, referred to the Senate, 7/27/2006.
  • Related legislation: S. 3499 – A bill to amend title 18, United States Code, to protect youth from exploitation by adults using the Internet, and for other purposes; and S. 3432 – A bill to protect children from exploitation by adults over the Internet, and for other purposes.
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