Missing and Exploited Children, there have been a mere 12 reported cases in 1996 of minors being seduced or harassed due to online predators. This small amount of cases is insignificant compared to the nearly 800,000 children that are reported missing every year in the U.S. alone1. There is very little to suggest that the Internet is a physically harmful environment which requires strict regulation that could possibly infringe on constitutional rights.Furthermore, the CDA’s broad clauses would make providers of online services, such as America Online and Prodigy, responsible for conversations that were held in private chat rooms on their servers. Holding America Online’s CEO Steve Case liable for a sexually explicit conversation that occurred in a private chat room between two of his six million customers is absolutely ridiculous. This is comparable to arresting the CEO of AT&T because two people had a sexually explicit conversation over one the company’s telephone lines. There is no way that every telephone or online conversation can be monitored, and it is wrong to hold the providers of these services accountable.If the CDA were ruled constitutional, commerce on the net would be greatly reduced. Companies such as CD NOW who sell popular music titles over the Internet would probably lose thousands of dollars in revenues if the best selling CD in the world contained sexually explicit lyrics in its title. It should not be illegal for CD NOW to post the title of a song on the web considering the CD can be bought in any music store across America. Art sellers who use the Internet as their means of reaching a larger clientele would also be hurt if they could not post paintings of nude bodies on the web. Most disturbing, the CDA completely negates a parent’s right to set her own children’s standards. The Internet has been compared to a large city, such as New York. It is a parent’s responsibility to make ...
