Porn registry has limits

By all means, Utah parents should register their children's e-mail addresses on the Utah Child Protection Registry. It is an important means for keeping Web-based businesses from sending promotions for pornography or other adult solicitations to children.

The registry, found at www.kidsregistry.utah.gov, went online last week. Businesses that send adult-oriented or pornographic e-mails are required to purge registered e-mail addresses from their mailing lists.

Utah is just the second state in the nation to establish what Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff describes as a do-not-call list for your child's e-mail account, which is notable. But it is not a foolproof measure, and it in no way absolves parents of their responsibility to carefully monitor their children's use of the Internet.

Computers with Internet access need to be placed in common areas of homes. Parents need to hone their own computer skills so they know how to search Web histories, how to access their child's e-mail accounts and learn their children's chat room nicknames. They also need to register any new e-mail accounts their children may create.

Some will argue these matters can violate a child's privacy, but parents have a responsibility to protect their children in the cyber world just as they would the real world. Parents need only to ask themselves if they would tolerate someone approaching their child on the street to show them pornographic photographs or speak to them in graphic terms. Of course not. They'd take immediate steps to stop such contact. They should be just as dogged in protecting their children from the same unwanted and dangerous advances in the cyber world.

It remains to be seen whether Utah's Child Protection Registry will be challenged on constitutional grounds. The state now faces a federal lawsuit over its planned Adult Content Registry. That program requires any Internet sites that deal with adult content to register with Utah and thus be blocked by some Internet service providers at a user's request. Under the law, distributing potentially harmful material to minors is a felony offense.

In any event, the registry is a good idea that has obvious limitations, given that the Web is a worldwide phenomenon and state and federal laws have only so much reach. As such, parents should take seriously their role in keeping objectionable and harmful materials from vulnerable children's eyes and ears.