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What is Kids.us?| Category | | | Summary | | A summary of the kids.us domain: what it is, how it works, how it was created, and what is in it. |
| | Body | Kids.us is a third-level subdomain run by NeuStar, Inc. which is advertised as a child-friendly alternative to the Internet at large. It is advertised as follows: "Finally, there's an Internet domain that parents and children can trust for educational and appropriate online fun: kids.us! All content on affiliated sites is regularly screened and monitored, making kids.us the most "youth-friendly" space on the Web."[1] ("Youth" here is defined as 13 and under).
The initiative was created by the Dot Kids Implementation and Efficiency Act of 2002 (Public Law 107-317, enacted December 4, 2002). NeuStar was required to develop all content policies such that the content was both suitable for and not harmful to minors. Nevertheless, there is liability protection under section 230(c) of the Communications Act of 1934 which applies to the Registry, Registrars, Resellers, and third party content managers.[2]
Per the Dot Kids Implementation, the kids.us domain is set up such that it cannot be two-way or multiuser interactive, nor can it have links to any content outside of the domain. The following types of material are expressly prohibited from the kids.us space: Mature content, pornography, inappropriate language, violence, hate speech, drugs, alcohol, tobacco, gambling, and weapons. NeuStar also claims the following with respect to registration:[2]
- Registrants obtain Kids.us domain name registration from Kids.us Accredited Registrar (Name is not entered into the zone, but in Whois)
- Registrants desiring content must obtain an �Active Registration�directly from NeuStar.
- Registrants must agree to abide by Content Policy as well as Content Management Service Terms of Use.
- Registrants must pay an annual content fee of $250 directly to NeuStar.
- Content must be initially approved by NeuStar (and/or its subcontractors).
- Content is reviewed on an ongoing basis by NeuStar.[2]
If there is a problem with content, it can be reported through NeuStar's own monitoring or through a third-party form. If credible, the threat is assessed on a three-level scale:
- Level 1: Mature content, pornography, inappropriate language, violence hyperlinks to Level 1 content, interactive or multiuser communication.{*]Level 2: Hate speech, drugs, alcohol, tobacco, gambling, and hyperlinks to Level 2 or 3 content.
- Level 3: Links to acceptable content.[2]
The enforcement process is as follows:
- Level 1: Domain name immediately removed from the zone file; Registry notifies registrant and registrar.
- Level 2: Registrant contacted and has 4 business hours to modify the content. Registrant must notify Registry and Registry reviews to ensure compliance; If not cured within 4 hours, the name is removed from the zone; Registrar copied on all correspondence from NeuStar.
- Level 3: Registrant contacted and has 12 business hours to modify the content. Registrant must notify Registry and Registry reviews to ensure compliance; If not cured within 12 hours, the name is removed from the zone; Registrar copied on all correspondence from NeuStar.[2]If a domain is removed, the site owner must go through a formal review process, though they do not lose the domain name. When the content is acceptable, the registrant must pay NeuStar $400 to re-active the site, and if another violation is subsequently found, the process starts all over again. Any disputes over removal go to a third-aprty arbitration board with no right of appeal. [2]Additionally, in order to register a .us TLD, the registrant must be one of the following: a US citizen, permanent resident, or someone who lives primarily in the United States or any of its possessions or territories. If a corporation, it must be incorporated or otherwise established in the United States or any of its possessions or territories, or[i] it must have a [i]bona fide presence in the United States. [3]Now that I've gone thorugh the tedious policy and procedure details, the next most important thing is what kind of content kids.us actually has. There are currently eight categories (as well as an option to list all sites), and all of the sites are all suffixed with .kids.us: Arts and Entertainment (Abckids, Americaslibrary, Nick, Nickjr, PBSKids, and the Smithsonian), Computers and Technology (no content), Fun and Games (the first five sites from Arts and Entertainment, plus Basketball, Stnicholas, Trampoline, and Trampolines [which are the same site]), News (Americaslibrary only), Our World (Americaslibrary and Stnicholas), Science (NOAA and Smithsonian), Sprts and Recreation (Basketball and the Trampoline sites), and Other Cool Stuff (Summum only). There are also a few uncategorized sites, which turned out to be uncategorized for a good reason.[4]So let's find out what all the content is, as of today, April 9, 2008:[list]
- A - dead link.
- ABCKids - a site for the ABC network, which has a list of their kid-friendly shows, printable schedules by timezone, and some related games.
- Americaslibrary - uses primary sources from the Library of Congress to teach history through stories and games.
- Games - dead link.
- Info - dead link.
- Music - dead link.
- Newyork - dead link.
- News - dead link.
- Nick - site for the Nickolodeon Network. Has games based on shows for the older youth demographic, like Spongebob, Jimmy Neutron, and so forth.
- Nickjr. - a similar site for the nick Jr. networek, which has shows geared for younger children, like Blue's Clues and Dora the Explorer.
- NOAA - a weather safety site under the auspices of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service. It covers tornadoes, lightning, flash floods, hurricanes, winter weather, and carbon monoxide (which is a list of what to tell your parents what to do to prevent carbon monoxide poisoning).
- PBSKids - games based on shows from the PBSKids network Sesame Street, Mister Rogers, Barney, and so on. Also, to avoid the hyperlinking ban, they simply type the addresses to the main sites on PBSKids.org so the user has to cut and paste them. There are a few sites here that do this.
- Smithsonian - obviously, a site about the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. The site was not loading properly, so I cannot comment on the content, though it looks interesting on the front page.
- Space - dead link.
- Stnicholas - dead link.
- Summum - dead link.
- Trampoline/Trampolines - commercial site for Superfun Trampolines. This is the only commercial site in the entire domain that is blatantly trying to sell a product.
Now that we know what the domain policies are, and also what sort of content is on the domain, we are in a position to make a judgment regarding the overall qauality of the domain. So, is it any good?
Well, kids.us fulfills its various purposes quite well - the prohibition of external linking (and consequently of ad banners) does make for a youth-friendly environment with the added benefit of minimal commercial interference (e.g., ads, which children can be more susceptible to). However, the linking policy has loopholes - as I have noted above, the prohibition is direct linking to an external website, not the presence of an external web address, which the PBS and Smithsonian sites have. So clearly, a web address can be posted, which could be abused for nefarious purposes, but the loophole is ostensibly addressed by the supervisory content screening.
However, the quality of the content is sorely lacking - there are a lot of dead sites. Of the 17 unique sites that have addresses listed, nine are dead links. Of the eight that are left, four are simply sites that list TV programminmg-related materials. Of the remaining four, one is blatantly commercial, and there are three sites that are purely educational.
Some of this may be due to the fact that nowhere on the site (not even in the brochure[5]) is there to be found a domain pricing list. Therefore, a subdomain might be prohibitively expensive. The situation may also be a combination of policies and resource limitiations combining in a negative fashion: along with the definite prohibition of external linking, there may be a potential lack of hardware and software resources on the kids.us servers. However, America's Library has embedded multimedia, so this many not be the case.
It is entirely possible that these issues have been resolved, but most tellingly, an email request I sent to the NeuStar PR email address and again later to the PR director to answer those types of questions has gone unanswered for over a month. In attempting to locate more information on NeuStar, I came across a Wikipedia article[6], which stated that NeuStar maintains telecommunications databases to enable routing of almost all telephone services in the United States, as well as the .biz and .us domains, so it may be that kids.us is simply not on their priority list, which is an unfortunate situation for such a promising and necessary domain to be in in today's world.
References:
[1]Kids.us About Page. Accessed April 9, 2008.
[2]Policy Overview PowerPoint Presentation. Accessed April 9, 2008.
[3] The usTLD Requirements. Accessed April 9, 2008.
[4]Kids.us Main page. Accessed April 9, 2008.
[5]Kids.us Brochure (PDF) Accessed April 20, 2008.
[6]NeuStar Accessed 26 April 2008. |
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