After CDA ruling, Net polices itself

Ray Soular is a registered Republican who campaigned for Ronald Reagan and once served as youth chairman for the Republican National Committee in Los Angeles County. The father of a 7-year-old daughter, he fully believes in protecting children against offensive words and pictures on the Internet.

He does not, however, believe in the Communications Decency Act.

"Government censorship doesn't work. We can do a better job using new technology than using the old model," said Soular, an amateur musician who is using his creative talents to think up other ways to accomplish the same goals. "The Internet was originally built to be like a tank. Now it will be designed to be a family vehicle, complete with child-safety seats."

The possible routes that all children can travel safely are only now being charted. But the mission of online pioneers like Soular, who started the SafeSurf Rating Standard to identify potentially dangerous sites along the way, has taken on new urgency since the rejection of the CDA by a special three-judge federal panel. [See CNET special report]

Although an appeal of the ruling in ACLU vs. Janet Reno is still possible, cybercitizens and industry executives are not waiting for the issue to wend its way through the judicial maze of due process. Instead, they are taking firm hold of the regulatory reins themselves, using the laws of science and technology to police the Internet--and in real time.

The implications of this grass-roots movement are profound, for it poses a question that only a few years ago was confined to science fiction and political theory: whether any international community, real or virtual, is capable of self-rule. And the issue of free speech is just the beginning.

Already, Nasdaq's National Association of Securities Dealers monitors online stock trading and dispenses fines for violations of self-imposed rules; Lycos and the Direct Marketing Association have proposed guidelines for advertising aimed at children; CommerceNet and the World Wide Web Consortium have introduced an initiative to standardize payments for online purchases; companies offering powerful search engine services are weighing privacy and national security restrictions, and at least one is planning to ban hate material.