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Content Policy
The policies identified in this document will set forth the guidelines
for the administration and management of content in the kids.us
domain.
We would like to thank every individual and organization that contributed
to this document, and for helping make kids.us a reality.
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Introduction
Background
More than 140 million Americans, half of our nation, are now
online. 90 percent of the children in America between the ages
of 5 and 17 now use computers and 65 percent of 10-13 year olds
use the Internet today. Usage among even the youngest members
of our society is significant, with more than 84 percent of
5-9 year olds using computers at home, school, or both.1
Our nation's youngest citizens are increasingly gaining access
to the Internet. How children use the Internet and what they
are exposed to while online are topics that have long been examined,
discussed, applauded, and criticized. These examples of widespread
use of the Internet by children in all aspects of their lives
demonstrate the demand for a domain designed for children.
Interested parties and individuals ranging from parents and
educators to communities and members of Congress have all expressed
great excitement at the potential benefits of a distinct place
on the Internet for our nation's children. To accomplish the
goal of establishing a place for children on the Internet, the
Dot Kids Implementation and Efficiency Act of 2002, Public Law
No. 107-317 (herein referred to as the "kids.us Act"),
was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 107th
Congress, and with nearly unanimous support was approved by
both the House and the U.S. Senate. Enactment of the kids.us
Act demonstrates the strong commitment by our nation's leaders
to create a rewarding online experience for our nation's youth.
The role of Neustar in the design and implementation
of the kids.us domain
The kids.us Act "assign[s] to the [National Telecommunications
and Information Administration] responsibility for providing
for the establishment, and overseeing operation, of a second-level
Internet domain within the United States country code domain.2"
In October 2001, The United States Department of Commerce ("DOC"),
National Institute of Standards and Technology ("NIST")
selected Neustar to manage and administer the .us domain name
space, the official ccTLD for the United States (Purchase Order
No. SB 1335-02-W-0175) (the "Government Contract").
As part of this contract with the DOC, Neustar agreed to reserve
a select set of second level domain names to be used to serve
the public. Among the reserved names was "kids", which
was put aside in order to enable an entity to manage a kids.us
domain name space for the benefit of children. In accordance
with the kids.us Act, Neustar will act as the Registry operator
for all third-level registrations under the kids.us domain and
have overall responsibility for managing the name space to ensure
appropriateness of content.
In light of the fact that Neustar will have the primary responsibility
for ensuring that content within the kids.us domain is appropriate
for children under the age of 13, Neustar has created the role
of the kids.us "Content Manager" to oversee this enormous
responsibility. The Content Manager may either be Neustar itself
or may be an entity, or several entities, approved by both Neustar
and the NTIA to perform these functions. The Content Manager
will be responsible for reviewing and approving content that
is appropriate for the kids.us domain pursuant to these kids.us
Content Guidelines and Requirements along with any other rules,
restrictions or regulations determined by Neustar and the NTIA.
To fulfill a requirement under the kids.us Act, Neustar has
drafted this policy for content guidelines and requirements
based on input from a variety of diverse sources. We attempted
to identify the major publicly and legally accepted children's
content standards for purposes of application to the kids.us
domain. This document reflects the excellent work developed
through government and privately-funded research, testimony
delivered at Congressional Hearings, articles, books, and some
preliminary conversations with members of the children's media
communities. Because of the public resource value of the kids.us
domain, we have taken great effort to reflect a wide sampling
of the information publicly available. Additionally, an initial
draft of this document3 was issued
for public comment in August of 2002. Neustar would like to
thank the individuals and organizations that responded to our
request for comments by contributing comments on the design
of the domain, suggested content, and restrictions for content.
Core objectives of kids.us—a domain for
children
The objective of the kids.us domain is to facilitate the establishment
of a friendly and enjoyable environment for children using the
Internet.
The kids.us Act states that the kids.us domain is intended
to serve "any person under 13 years of age". This
benchmark for the kids.us domain is not surprising as it is
consistent with other existing legal frameworks in a variety
of media, including, for example, the Children's Online Protection
Act.
Specifically, the kids.us domain is designed to restrict access
to content that is "harmful to minors", which has
been defined by the kids.us Act as:
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"The average person, applying contemporary community
standards, would find, taking the material as a whole and
with respect to minors, that it is designed to appeal to,
or is designed to pander to, the prurient interest;
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The material depicts, describes, or represents, in a manner
patently offensive with respect to minors, an actual or
simulated sexual act or sexual contact, an actual or simulated
normal or perverted sexual act, or a lewd exhibition of
the genitals or post-pubescent female breast; and
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Taken as a whole, the material lacks serious, literary,
artistic, political, or scientific value for minors."4
Further, the kids.us Act also states that the domain should
have content that is "suitable for minors", or content
that:
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"Is not psychologically or intellectually inappropriate
for minors; and
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Serves (1) the educational, informational, intellectual,
or cognitive needs of minors; or (2) the social, emotional,
or entertainment needs of minors."5
It is important to understand that the kids.us domain is
not intended to be a cure-all solution to the many problems
and dangers associated with children's use of the Internet.
As the National Academies of Sciences ("NAS")
concluded in the recently released report "Youth, Pornography,
and the Internet," there is no single approach that
will, on its own, protect children from online dangers.6
Rather, the kids.us domain is being designed as an alternative
on the Internet that children, parents, educators, and children's
content providers may elect to use. A domain for children
alone cannot address the larger problems associated with
children's Internet use. Given the technical and legal limitations
that plague any Internet domain, a space dedicated to children
can be targeted by bad actors or subject to technical problems.
These facts demonstrate that there can be no truly safe
place or "haven" for children. To the contrary,
a place for children can be effective only if it is accompanied
by the many components identified by the NAS in their report,
including parental involvement, adult supervision, social
and educational support, and publicly available, user-friendly,
and cost-effective technology-based tools.
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Kids.us Guidelines and Restrictions
Content guidelines for the kids.us domain
The following are the specific content guidelines for determining
which content is "suitable for minors" that resolves
within a kids.us-approved domain name. Each of these standards
are currently used or accepted in a variety of public communications
and media forums. Aggregating existing standards and integrating
them into the kids.us domain provides a means of defining what
is acceptable content in a domain for children, and also acts
as a notice to kids.us registrants of some existing standards
and laws that are applicable to children online.
In addition, these content guidelines and restrictions are
applicable to all domains within the kids.us domain, whether
at the third, fourth or higher level, which is defined herein
as any web page that is associated with a domain name ending
in kids.us—all pages "behind" the primary URL
and all pages associated with domains "to the left"
of kids.us. Thus, although domain names with four or more levels
(e.g., registry.Neustar.kids.us) are permitted and can be managed
at the discretion of the registrant, those pages are considered
part of the kids.us domain and are therefore subject to all
guidelines, restrictions and policies of the kids.us space.
Compliance with existing laws, regulations, and
relevant voluntary standards
In addition to the guidelines and requirements contained herein,
all content that resides within a kids.us-approved domain must
be in compliance with existing laws, widely adopted children's
online protection policies, advertising policies, privacy requirements
and other policies, restrictions and guidelines approved by
Neustar and the NTIA. These include, but are not limited to,
the several key legal, regulatory, and voluntary standards listed
below that impact multimedia children's content today.
Compliance with existing rules and regulations
regarding indecency on the airwaves
In light of the public significance of both the usTLD and the
kids.us second level domain, the registry operator already reviews,
for possible deletion, all registered .us domain names that
contain, within the characters of the domain name registration,
any of the seven words identified in Federal Communications
Commission v. Pacifica Foundation.7
An expanded version of this policy will be extended to the kids.us
registrations.
A commitment to offer some educational and informational
content
Pursuant to the Children's Television Act8
and the FCC's rules implementing this statute,9
broadcasters have a public interest obligation to air a specific
number of hours of programming that offers some educational
and informational content targeted to children under 13. These
rules are consistent with the spirit of the "suitable for
minors" clause in the kids.us Act and thus, all registrants
within the kids.us domain are encouraged to have some component
of educational and informational content for children on their
respective domains.
Compliance with the children's online privacy
protection act (COPPA) requirements10
The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) requires
the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to issue and enforce rules
concerning children's online privacy.11
In doing so, the FTC stated its primary goal as placing parents
in control over the information that may be collected from their
children online. Specifically, the COPPA rules apply to three
groups of website operators: operators of commercial websites
or online services directed to children under 13 that collect
personal information from children; operators of general audience
sites that collect personal information from children under
13; and operators of general audience sites that have a separate
children's area and that collect personal information from children.
These three groups of operators are required to perform certain
tasks. First, these operators must post a privacy policy, provide
notice to parents about the site's information collection practices,
and in many instances, obtain parental consent prior to collecting
personal information from children. In addition, the operators
must provide parents access to their child's information and
the opportunity to delete information, they may not condition
a child's participation in an activity on the disclosure of
more information than is reasonably necessary, and they must
maintain the confidentiality, security and integrity of the
personal information collected from children.
As stated above, the kids.us domain must be in strict compliance
with existing laws, including of course, the requirements of
the COPPA, however, neither Neustar, the DOC nor any Content
Manager will be responsible for enforcing these requirements.
Compliance with children's advertising review unit (CARU) advertising
standards
One example of widely adopted policies relating to advertising
includes the efforts of the Children's Advertising Review Unit
(CARU) of the Better Business Bureau. The CARU reviews and evaluates
advertising in all media directed to children under 12. This
includes print, broadcast and cable television, radio, video,
CD-ROM, 900/976 teleprograms, and interactive electronic media.
CARU reviews advertising to determine consistency with its guidelines.
If advertising is found to be misleading, inaccurate, or inconsistent
with the guidelines, CARU works to achieve voluntary cooperation
from the relevant parties to ensure compliance. All kids.us
registrants are encouraged to be in compliance with the CARU
Guidelines.12
Restrictions within the kids.us domain
In addition to the proposed general standards identified above,
below is a core list of content restrictions to be followed
within the kids.us domain.
The following information or content is not permitted within
the kids.us domain:
- Mature content
- Pornography
- Inappropriate language
- Violence
- Hate speech
- Drugs
- Alcohol
- Tobacco
- Gambling
- Weapons
- Criminal activity
(For more information, please download the Content
Policy in PDF format.
Notwithstanding the list contained above, all content will
be reviewed by the Content Manager(s) on the whole prior to
being approved for display on a kids.us domain. If such content
is deemed by the Content Manager(s) and/or Neustar as having
serious educational, informational, intellectual, literary,
artistic, political, or scientific value for minors we believe
that exceptions can be made to allow this content to appear
in the kids.us domain.
Technology restrictions
Because there is no foolproof method for protecting children
online at this time, the kids.us Act specifies limitations put
on specific technologies commonly used on the Internet today.
These technologies are prohibited from use in any kids.us domains:
- Two-way and multi-user interactive services, which includes:
e-mail, chat, instant messaging, Usenet, Message Boards of
like user forum, and peer-to-peer connections, place "unless
the registrant certifies to the registrar that such service
will be offered in compliance with content standards established
… and is designed to reduce the risk of exploitation
of minors using such two-way and multi-user interactive services";
and
- Hyperlinks that take a user outside of the kids.us domain.
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Enforcement Processes and Procedures
Pursuant to the kids.us Act, the registry operator has responsibility
for creating "a process for removing from the new domain
any content that is not in accordance with the [content] standards
and requirements of the registry." This enforcement power,
though severe, is not absolute and finite, as the registry is
also required to create "a process to provide registrants
to the new domain with an opportunity for a prompt, expeditious,
and impartial dispute resolution process regarding any material
of the registrant excluded from the new domain."13
The purpose of providing this enforcement power to the registry
operator is to strengthen a core objective of the kids.us Act,
which is both to create an online arena that is free from material
that is harmful to minors and to ensure that the kids.us domain
remains safe from such harmful material.
At the time of initial content review, all potential websites
must completely abide by the kids.us Content Guidelines and
Restrictions before any content may reside within the kids.us
domain. Once content is available, the Registry can be made
aware of any true or alleged content infractions from the Content
Manager or through feedback received directly from the Internet
community14. On an on-going basis,
the Registry will follow a defined process for removing appropriate
content from the kids.us domain. This process is designed to
balance the needs of maintaining a stable domain space as well
as ensuring a timely and expeditious means for registrants to
resolve any true or alleged content infractions.
In order to aid the registry operator in its enforcement, these
content restrictions have been assigned a "severity level"
that will guide the registry in addressing content violations.
Because the registry does not have direct access to the content
within a website, actions by the registry are limited to removing
a domain name from the authoritative database, thereby blocking
the site in its entirety15. Although
complete removal of a domain name may appear to be an extreme
course of action in some instances, the objective of protecting
children is paramount and must be the guiding factor in the
enforcement process.
Content Restrictions are broken into three categories:
| Level 1 |
Level 2 |
Level 3 |
| Mature content |
Hate speech |
Hyperlinks to acceptable content |
| Pornography |
Drugs |
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| Inappropriate language |
Weapons |
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| Violence |
Hyperlinks to Level 2 or Level 3 content |
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| Hyperlinks to Level 1 content |
Gambling |
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| Interactive or mult-user communication |
Alcohol |
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| Criminal activity |
Tobacco |
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When the Registry is actually notified of an alleged violation,
each site will be reviewed within a reasonable time period and
categorized pursuant to the table above. If the Content Manager
and/or the registry operator determines that a violation has
occurred, the following actions will be taken for each of the
categories:
Level 1—Registry will immediately remove the domain
name from the Zone file, contact the Registrar and Registrant
and provide them notification of removal. The registrant will
be required to repeat the content review process before the
name can be re-established in the zone.
Level 2—Registry will notify the Registrar and
Registrant of the infraction and provide 4 hours for the error
to be modified. The registrant will be subject to an additional
review.
Level 3—Registry will notify the Registrar or Registrant
of the infraction and provide 12 hours for the error to be modified.
Registrants found in violation of the content standards desiring
to be reinstated within the kids.us domain will be subject to
a new review and re-activation fee each time a domain name is
removed from the zone file and then re-entered. This fee is
designed to recover the operational expense associated with
manual removal and insertion into the Registry zone file, the
additional content reviews, and other administrative expenses.
Registrants found repeatedly violating the content policy may
be subject to permanent loss of their domain name, at the sole
discretion of the registry.
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