1. It is not dependent on legislation or governmental intervention.

2. It is not plagued by constitutional and legal problems that would be associated with enforcement of legislation based on the concept of "inappropriate" (or "indecent").

As I will show, so long as search service companies do not adopt high editorial standards, but instead shrug off their responsibility and claim it's totally up to parents to filter out inappropriate clickable Web advertisements, many vulnerable children will be needlessly harmed.

Implications of an Inappropriate Ad
Table of Contents

For about two weeks in October 1995, there was a sexually suggestive, clickable advertising image or "adlink" for Redbook magazine that appeared on the Lycos pages. It declared, "The Sex Skill Men Really Love," and two mouse-clicks could take a child to graphic descriptions of oral sex (slowly with a graphics browser, but very quickly with lynx).

Children are being taught to use Web search utilities, including Lycos, in schools around the country. And relying on such search utilities is not something that children using the Web can avoid. Clearly this ad raises significant issues.

If you want, before proceeding you can:

see the Redbook ad

read excerpts of the Redbook article (warning, explicit language)

read an emailed categorical denial of error from the President and CEO of Lycos

read an emailed acknowledgement of error from the Marketing Vice President of the HomeArts Company, Redbook's owner

A New Kind of Advertising
Contents

It is true that magazines like Redbook are lying on coffee tables around the country, and that children can easily see these words on magazine covers or find such stories.

But that's nothing like the experience of a curious child who is innocently conducting a Web search for, say, a school report, and gets hit with this inappropriate Redbook ad before the search results.

It's sort of like an R-rated preview randomly showing up before an educational documentary or G-rated movie--and children being given the option of turning the R-rated preview into an R-rated movie with two clicks of a button.

Or, returning to the comparison with magazines on coffee tables, children are never forced to look at sexually provocative magazine covers as they are looking something up in a dictionary or encyclopedia.

Actually, it's hard to compare this Redbook ad on a Web search utility to ads in the offline world, because Web search utilities and these clickable ads are both unprecedented.

The Need for a More Complete Discussion and Debate
Contents

Thoughtful discussion and debate are needed so we can understand how these ads are new and different--and take steps to ensure that children are protected from potential negative effects.

It's a good idea for all of us--along with members of Congress and decision-makers at companies like Lycos--to discuss and debate our visions of the editorial standards we expect from companies that provide services essential for Web users of all ages.

Typically, the larger debate about child safety and the Internet has revolved around the opposition of government censorship versus free speech, and how parents can protect their children.

These are obviously key concerns, and significant contributions have been made in these areas, but we need to consider two other issues that have been insufficiently addressed in this debate:

1. Corporate responsibility and standards.

2. The experiences and needs of abused and neglected children, who cannot speak for themselves in this debate.

The Incomplete Debate and Corporate Responsibility
Contents

The narrowly focused debate about the safety of children on the Internet has incompletely addressed the crucial issue of corporate responsibility. True, there has been some focus on major service providers like America Online and CompuServe, and how responsible they should be for material transmitted on their networks. But little discussion or debate has focused on the responsibility of corporate content providers, particularly those companies whose material is experienced by children.

Rather than seeing ads on Web search services solely in terms of free speech and censorship, we might look to a more relevant and long-standing tradition of corporate self-regulation.

For many years the Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus has worked to protect children from inappropriate advertising. They describe their mission:

The Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus reviews advertising directed at children under the age of 12. When advertising is found to be misleading, inaccurate, or inconsistent with CARU's Self-Regulatory Guidelines for Children's Advertising, CARU seeks change through the voluntary cooperation of advertisers.

CARU's Self-Regulatory Guidelines are subjective, going beyond the issues of truthfulness and accuracy to take into account the uniquely impressionable and vulnerable child audience.

Here's more of what you'll see if you visit CARU's pages:

Self-Regulation to Protect Our Youngest Consumers

Responsible advertisers recognize that the child audience is uniquely impressionable and adhere to CARU's self-regulatory guidelines when marketing to our nation's youngest consumers.

The Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB) provides a mechanism to safeguard responsible advertising to children, support voluntary self-regulation within the children's advertising industry and promote truthful, accurate advertising.

As of June 1995, CARU had 33 corporate supporters, ranging from The Walt Disney Company to Sega of America. The entire list can be seen on CARU's pages.

The ads on Web search services may not be directed at children under 12. But children as young as 8 years of age need to use these services to navigate the Web and (increasingly) to do school work--and they are receiving these ads every time they conduct a search.

Companies like Lycos should follow the example set by CARU and its corporate supporters by recognizing that child users are "uniquely impressionable and vulnerable" and by setting high editorial standards for the advertising they allow on their search services.

The Incomplete Debate and Vulnerable Children
Contents

No child using a Web search service should be forced to look at the inappropriate Redbook ad. However, parents already have access to filtering technologies that can screen out such material. Some might think this is reason enough not to expect any higher editorial standards from the companies providing these services. But this would be a terrible mistake.

As a Ph.D. candidate in clinical psychology, a researcher of child abuse, and a psychotherapist who works with adults who were abused as children, I want to introduce some issues not ordinarily addressed in debates about children's vulnerability to inappropriate material on the Internet.

Again, the debate thus far has revolved around conflicts between free speech and government censorship. And this has led to a focus on how parents can protect their children at home, with considerable emphasis on content-filtering technologies.

Unfortunately, many parents do not, and will not, protect their children.

Though we may wish this were not true, and we might rather not think about such things, we need to consider the realities of child abuse and neglect in the United States.

The following statistics have serious implications for any debate about protecting children from inappropriate Internet content. These statistics ought to inform the editorial standards of companies that provide World Wide Web search services.