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The new domain would see content that is child-friendly and free from pornography and other content that is inappropriate for under 13-year-olds, while also maintaining the right of free speech.
The bill is officially known as the "Dot Kids Implementation and Efficiency Act of 2002" and was passed by the Telecommunications and the Internet Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee last week.
Congressman John Skimus (Republican-Illinois), the author of the bill, says that although libraries and bookstores have specific content organised for children, the Internet does not. "Sites locating on the 'dot kids dot us' domain would voluntarily be there and will be subject to continuous review for objectionable material," he added.
Under the proposal, Washington-based NeuStar, which will begin taking registrations for the dot-us country-code domain in April, will be responsible for operating the dot-kids second-level domain within the dot-us domain.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the international body that governs domain names, refused to create a ".kids" suffix, citing the problems of content monitoring as the main drawback. Should the .kids.us domain go ahead it is thought that NeuStar would charge a higher-than-average registration fee to offset some of the content monitoring costs.
Although no members of the subcommittee voted against the legislation, a few Democrats have expressed concerns about the bill. Representative Anna Eshoo claims that the bill is a backward step as it includes government involvement and it has, up to now, been the policy of the US to have no involvement in the Internet. She also questioned whether the bill provides adequate funding to sustain NeuStar and government agencies monitoring the content.
The bill is now expected to be brought before the full Energy and Commerce Committee by Easter.
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