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Here in Germany we do have Face2Face as age verification.
I talked to dzinerbear about that a while ago and he was very stunned that if he wanted he could not get into member areas under .de domains where the owner is german since he could not pass the F2F-verification at a local post office or via SCHUFA (company that holds bank account data, personal credit data and such).
They say that it cut revenue by 70 to 90% in Germany.
DEV.
I was invited to attend the forum and speak to the group regarding what we at Titan do in terms of trying to keep our content out of the hands of kids.
The goal of the forum was to give several of the companies that offer age verification services the opportunity to present their systems to a group of industry professionals. The majority of the people in attendance were from major studios, third party processors, and affiliate programs...not from age verifications companies.
We listened to the various presentations, I talked about our experiance with the system we use (Aristotle), and then the group discusssed various issues.
Thats all! There were no hard sell or scare tactics employed by anyone. Larry Walters and Greg Picconelli were there to represent the legal end of the industry, not trying to sell anything.
Larry was not pushing his system down anyones throat. His business is the adult industry and everyone should be thankful that there are attorneys like him and Greg that work as hard for us all!
In fact, Larry will give anyone the system if they just ask...he does not make any money off of it. He developed it at the request of his large retainer clients, and then is making it available to others as well. We personally do not think his system is adequete for our needs and have chosen another age verification system to use.
Why does everyone seem to think that all he cares about is making money?? The guy does a whole hell of alot for the industry! I respect alot of what he and Greg do for everyone.
Now, lets get to the basic issue....Why should the online world be any different then brick and mortor adult stores? We don't allow children into adult stores, we don't put hardcore pictures in the "front window" and we don't give "free samples" of hardcore films without making sure the person is old enough to watch them....why should it be any different online?
Just because people have been able to get away with it for the past years does not make it right. The government is finally catching up to us, and people in government are realizing that many of us in the online world have pushed it way to far.
I guarantee you that once the government can figure out a way to legally implement some form of age verification requirement they will. Would you rather try to do this ourselves and be responsable or do you want the government to step in and do it for us?
We spend thousands of dollars a month on our age verification system and we lose 60% of our online traffic at the age verification page....that's just the price we pay for running our business. We have voluntarily chosen to do this because we think it's the right thing to do.
Even with all of these "barriers" to our business we have had double digits sales increases every year we have been in business. We are finding that by weeding out the people that do not want to authenticate their age, we are weeding out the people that are just looking for free stuff. Our theory, and it seems to be holding true for us, is that if someone won't age authenticate they probably won't give you their credit card number.
One last bit of info...we know from various sources within the DOJ that going forward they are going to target their obscenity prosecutions on companies that do not put up adequete protection for children. It will be an easier sell to a jury when they hold up images and say "They made these available to children, they did not protect our children against their obscene materials.". Companies that do not make at least an attempt to keep content away from kids are more ripe for prosecution.
This is all about choice and what risks each company is willing to take. I am not trying to put anyone down for the choices they are making or are going to make. Each company and person needs to make these decisions themselves.
We have made the decision that we are not going to take any unnecessary risks and we are going to do all we can to keep our content out of the hands of chilrdren. We believe that this is not only a good ethical decision, but also a good business decision.
Hope this helps clear up some of the mis-conceptions regarding the forum.
Titanmen - two things.
first, how does aristotle keep out minors?
second, i talked to mr. walters about his system a few months ago and it did cost money. just wanted to clear that up. i have no issues with paying for something of value myself.
btw, can we have a link to aristotle? thanks, and thanks for your post.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Titanmen
I have a lot of respect for the work that both men do, but all of the attorneys in the industry, me included, would not be working for the adult industry if we weren't getting paid. I do give a lot of free legal advice to newbies but I certainly don't expect to get any acclaims for doing work and getting paid for it.
What is wrong with the status quo?
I was over at my roomie's mom's recently, and she mentioned that she had "porn site blocking" turned on with Earthlink. Well as a test, we tried to go to my website from her shiny, new iMac. Sure enough, no dice.
How difficult is that? She's even going to get an official note from her ISP reporting the attempt.
Friends of mine who work at Dell and Intel sure can't get on my site or other adult sites. And they aren't waiting for me to install these suggested adult verification systems. They know it's adult, and they prevent it. No big deal.
I wondered the same thing during the Senate hearings. Why is Senator Ted Stevens so worked up over racy content on television, when he himself voted the V-Chip into reality to address this very same problem a decade ago?
Anti-porn advocates are going to relentlessly beat the drum for government action. I'd rather see an active counter to their ideas, which can effectively be countered by PR.
Steve
Basschick- The site is www.KidSheriff.com for more information. I need to say that this system is not for everyone. As producers of content we are more vulnerable to prosecution then someone who is re-selling content. As such we have to be more cautious then many others.
Is this system perfect, No! Am I comfortable with all the possible privacy implications, no! But after reviewing all the available options and spending thousands of dollars to have lawyers review and advise us, this is the best option for us at this time. If something better, easier and less intrusive comes along down the line would we switch...hell yes! But for now this is the best option for us.
Chad- We are ALL in this for the money in one way or another, this is a business afterall. ;-) I have a lot of respect for ANY attorney that is willing to work with the adult industry. I have personally seen how our in-house counsel is treated by others in the legal profession. He is branded the "Porn Lawyer" and is often treated very poorly by both the court system and other in the legal field.
Both Larry and Greg volunteer and donate many legal hours to ASACP, FSC, and many other adult industry assocaitions. I am comfortable that they give back as much as they take. And I thank-you for having the guts to work with the adult industry. I'm sure you could make a lot more money working as an associate in a big legal firm! ;-)
Desslock- Unfortunately it will be me going to jail , not mommy and daddy, when little Johnny gets ahold of one of my fisting videos. I absolutley agree that parents need to bare the bulk of the burden in protecting their children, but they are not doing so. This still does not let us off the hook to be able to do whatever we want.
There are still some basic "best practices" that we all should follow online to try and curb the amount of hardcore porn easily available to kids. If you were to put free samples of beer outside the frontdoor of your bar who do you think is going to get in trouble when some kid drinks the beer?
We sell adult products and along with that comes some basic responsability to ensure it does not get into the hands of children.
Again, I am not trying to attack your beliefs or arguements. I need to do what I think is right for the longterm protection and vialbility of my business. Each of us have different business needs and priorities. It's up to each of us to access how we run our business and make hard choices that we are comfortable with.
Oh and I certainly appreciate your position. For myself, the situation is entirely different. I have no investors or employees, so the risk is just mine.
One thing though, it is important to recognize that the Internet is different from your typical physical neighborhood in that it is completely unzoned. There is not one demarked area for beautiful parks, another area for the shanties and another for single family homes.
You cannot draw a similarity with what physical bars or adult bookstores do. Bookstores only have one or two doors. Our websites have jillions.
Interestingly, the Supreme Court recognized this important distinction about the Internet in Ashcroft v. ACLU two years ago. This is why COPA was declared unconstitutional. I think that really limited what the US Congress can direct in this matter, and it's refreshing to see how the Supremes are really "with it" regarding new technology such as this.
Therefore, it's the time to praise the efficiencies and wisdom of the status quo.
Steve
PS: This is yet another reason we do not want "control of the Internet" to leave the US.