S-0565.1  _______________________________________________

                    SENATE JOINT MEMORIAL 8007

          _______________________________________________

State of Washington      57th Legislature     2001 Regular Session

By Senators Shin, Costa, Roach, Prentice, Rasmussen, Regala and Patterson

Read first time 01/17/2001.  Referred to Committee on Economic Development & Telecommunications.

Requesting a specific domain designation for internet pornography websites.

    TO THE HONORABLE GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, AND TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE AND THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, AND TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES, IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED, AND TO INTERNET CORPORATION FOR ASSIGNED NAMES AND NUMBERS:

    We, your Memorialists, the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Washington, in legislative session assembled, respectfully represent and petition as follows:

    WHEREAS, Every day countless children and adults suffer emotional damage and offense through unintentionally accessing pornography from an adult-content site on the Internet by mistakenly typing in an incorrect domain designation; and

    WHEREAS, Software which prevents access to adult-content sites cannot reliably do so because of the variability of Internet domain designations for adult-content sites; and

    WHEREAS, Creating a generic top-level domain designation specific to adult-content sites would reduce the variability of Internet domain designations for adult-content sites, and would thereby enhance the reliability with which software is able to prevent inadvertent access;

    NOW, THEREFORE, Your Memorialists respectfully request that an additional generic top-level domain designation be created as ".xxx" so that all adult-content Internet sites would be designated by use of this generic top-level domain.  This will enable blocking software to more reliably recognize adult-content sites, thereby ensuring that children and adults will not view pornography on the Internet in error.

    BE IT RESOLVED, That copies of this Memorial be immediately transmitted to the Honorable George W. Bush, President of the United States, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and each member of Congress from the State of Washington.

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