Jon Weinberg

Congress established the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) Commission to study ways to protect children from sexually explicit material on the Internet. In the following viewpoint, Jon Weinberg, a law professor at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, testifies that establishing a separate Internet domain such as “.XXX” for pornographic material will have little effect in preventing minors from gaining access to the websites. In addition, he asserts that requiring porn site operators to move their websites to a separate domain would violate the First Amendment.

As you read, consider the following questions:

1. What are the seven generic, three-letter domain names established in 1984, as cited by Weinberg?
2. What is the responsibility of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers?
3. In Weinberg’s opinion, why would it be disastrous for...