The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act is named after a
six-year-old who was abducted in 1981 and killed. His parents have
since dedicated their lives to protecting children from child
predators.
The law contains meta tag controls which were rejected when
proposed as part of another law, the Stop Adults Facilitating the
Exploitation of Youth (SAFETY) Act. The SAFETY Act was not passed
by legislators.
The law is designed to stop sites with potentially offensive
material using meta tags to attract viewers under false pretences.
It refers to the labels and meta tags which are seen by many search
engines but not by users of sites.
The bill is particularly targeted at those who use words that
would attract children – such as the names of famous toys – in the
labelling of websites containing pornography or other material
deemed unsuitable for children.
"Whoever knowingly embeds words or digital images into the
source code of a website with the intent to deceive a person into
viewing material constituting obscenity shall be fined under this
title and imprisoned for not more than 10 years," says the
bill.
It carries a stiffer penalty for activity aimed at children:
"Whoever knowingly embeds words or digital images into the source
code of a website with the intent to deceive a minor into viewing
material harmful to minors on the Internet shall be fined under
this title and imprisoned for not more than 20 years."
"At home, we put the security of our children first," said House
Speaker J. Dennis Hastert. "We've all seen the disturbing headlines
about sex offenders and crimes against children. These crimes
cannot persist."
In 2000, brand protection specialists Envisional searched
against the names of that year's 26 most popular children's
characters, including Pokémon, My Little Pony, Toy Story and Furby.
Its study found several thousand links to pornographic sites.
However, the significance of meta data for search engine
optimisation has reduced in recent years.
Most websites contain a meta description tag and a meta keywords
tag. The description tag is used by several search engines,
although Google is a notable exception. The keywords tag, however,
is respected by very few search engines, due to the historical
abuse of meta tags.
The new bill deals more broadly with the registration and
treatment of sex offenders and outlaws the sale of date rape drugs.
It establishes a national sex offenders' register and pilot tagging
programmes for sex offenders. Only a small part of the legislation
deals with website meta tags.
US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said that "America's
children will be better protected from every parent's worst
nightmare-sexual predators," thanks to the law's passage. It has
been passed by both houses and awaits the US President's signature
before it becomes law.
