EON

Age Protection Internet Law Overturned By 3rd Circuit Appeals Court

San Francisco- In a blow to the government and its effort to protect children online, the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a law, which required Internet Web sites to verify the age of visitors.

A 2007 lower court held earlier that this provision of the Clinton era Internet law was unconstitutional, and the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, upholding their decision.

This means that adult content Internet web sites will no longer have to make sure that visitors to their website are at least 18 or 21 years of age, respectively.

The courts found that the standards for defining adult material were loosely defined, and so they declared the law was in effect unconstitutional.

The US Department of Justice has been defending the COPA age law since it passed first in 1998, and the efforts of the ACLU and other groups to strike the law down have been constant since that date.

Many people are disappointed in the courts ruling, because while transitory and not complete, the coverage provided by the COPA law at least made age verification a part issue on the web sites of adult content.

Now, there is no apparent restriction on age for users who wish to visit these types of web Internet sites.