The Internet's not G-rated

The U.S. Supreme Court, in one of several stunning decisions that closed out this year's session, struck down the Communications Decency Act as unconstitutional.

Although some of its proponents had doubts about the law's ability to withstand judicial muster, not many were prepared for the strong endorsement the majority opinion gave to the Internet as a robust forum for free exchange of ideas.

As an industry, we should be truly happy with the decision.

For one, it validates and confirms the Internet as a medium wholly different from mass broadcast media. The justices said it has much more in common with print and - as Net boosters have said for years - is very much an electronic version of the town square, or better still, a group of neighbors chatting over the backyard fence.

Such interaction has been protected from state intrusion since the birth of the country. The current Supreme Court has extended that protection to the exchange of information over the Net.

By linking it to print, the court also recognized the fundamentally individual transactional nature of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Like a library, most material comes to you by request. You, as a user or buyer, need to actively search for what you want. Acquiring information requires a high degree of interaction, as opposed to sitting on a sofa and flipping channels.

This idea was made more pointed in that one of the few aspects of the law that the court left open was a portion that made it illegal to transmit unsolicited pornographic materials to a specific individual, especially a minor.

But beyond the importance of the principle involved, there are other aspects of the decision that the industry should be pleased about. For one, the carrier or Internet service provider doesn't have to worry about playing morality police. Carriers are not liable for the content they carry. This, too, is wise. In the years before the Internet, no one ever thought of holding AT&T liable from prosecution if a calling party used profanity over its phone lines.

Second, the law would have stifled both usage and growth of the Internet as a viable information source. The Communications Decency Act was broad enough to chill legitimate electronic discussion on health, lifestyles and politics. Aspects of these topics are suitable for adults only. Although proponents of the Communications Decency Act speak of protecting children, there are better ways to do this than reducing electronic media to a 9-year-old age level.

Much of the call for Internet regulation has been driven not so much by morality but by the fear that the pervasiveness and power of media and technology is overwhelming the ability of parents to control what their children have access to.

Hence, addressing the problem starts with coming to terms with our collective future, not in the Sisyphean task of banning Internet smut.

*** In another Web-related controversy, Ticketmaster is suing to stop Microsoft's Sidewalk Web site from hot-linking to its own site without paying a "link license" fee. Now, no one's saying that common sense ever prevailed at Ticketmaster when there was an extra buck to be squeezed. But it seems to me that it's been a practice since the first souks sprung up in the streets of Ur to pay a commission to touts to bring in customers, not vice versa.

With so many companies - not to mention executives - charged with demonstrating that Internet commerce actually works, Ticketmaster instead is doing its best to make it hard for people to reach its site.

Here at Telephony, and no doubt at most other enterprises with a Web presence, we are often asked, particularly by our contributors, to provide a hot link to their Web site, something we happily provide in return for a reciprocal link. You see, we want people to visit our Web site (www.internettelephony.com). We want you to read our on-line news. We want you to inquire about our on-line classified. We want you to sign up for subscriptions and order our books. The easier you can do this, the better we achieve our electronic publishing goals.

According to published reports, much of the uproar at Ticketmaster has come from its legal side. How typical for the briefcase set to mistake a favor for a threat. But it's this simple: Every Ticketmaster dead end a browser from Sidewalk hits is a lost sales opportunity. When will Ticketmaster ever figure out that long-term planning beats short-term greed in electronic commerce? Probably the same day they start selling tickets to Pearl Jam.