US Attorney General, John Ashcroft, has adult web businesses running scared. Ashcroft’s intentions are clear, says one critic. And it terrifies people in the adult entertainment industry. He is dictating what a company can or can’t do on a website, what to do before and after they buy on the site and what type of content they can have on their pages..Headline: Adult Sites Going Dutch

Deck: The Netherlands may have the most liberal laws and views as far as pornographic content is concerned, but for how long?

Byline: EuroAdult TopHosts (http://euroadult.tophosts.com)

US Attorney General, John Ashcroft, has adult web businesses running scared. Ashcroft’s intentions are clear, says one critic. And it terrifies people in the adult entertainment industry. He is dictating what a company can or can’t do on a website, what to do before and after they buy on the site and what type of content they can have on their pages.

The critic, Michael Atkin, Vice President of Maxil Communications, is also a beneficiary of Ashcroft’s ironfisted views.

Maxil Communications, the leading offshore IDC services provider in the Bahamas, has gained scores of clients fleeing from the tough laws of the US to the islands where they enjoy the additional benefit of tax savings on top of less stringent content rules.

The Netherlands also provides this sanctuary for adult clientele. Arjan van Jaaren, co-owner of PGW Internet and XXX Treme — one of the top three adult providers in Holland for the last five years—said one of his US clients has re-registered domains in Holland after the government issued a court order effectively shutting down two thousand of his domains due to legal conflicts.

Holland does have freer laws regarding posting of pornographic content. While adult sites must issue warnings that content are for persons above 18 years of age, they are not bound by credit verification systems in place in most countries.

“The US government is watching what’s going on in Holland,” says van Jaaren.

“Americans will try to control everything to set the example but there are better examples to set. More freedom and more control, for instance. Everyone that requires a domain for pornographic content should leave additional information be it a passport or credit card information. This will ensure that if there is a violation of law at that website, there will be a way to trace or link it to an entity or a person.”

Laws vary widely across Europe but for adult sites, the most restrictive obscenity laws are found in the UK, which considers existing laws sufficient to cover the Internet. The Protection of Children Act of 1978 was updated in the late 1980s to include electronic images. Similarly in Germany, what is illegal off-line is also illegal on-line, including child pornography and Nazi propaganda. But in Germany, ISPs by law are responsible for the content on their system. More harsh is the fact that the German federal government has proposed several measures including limiting the distribution of pornography to a time slot between 11pm and 6am, and forcing larger content providers to employ control officers to ensure compliance with the law.

The European Union has a four-year action plan (1999-2002) on promoting safer use of the Internet and tackling the controversial issue of illegal and harmful content. This 25 million Euro initiative includes the following mandate:

* Users and industry should not be disproportionately affected

* Freedom of expression and the right to privacy should be respected

* Law-enforcement authorities should remain responsible for prosecution and punishment

Illegal content should be removed by industry with help from self-regulatory bodies. Hotlines, filtering software and rating systems should all help users avoid such content.

Many hosts in an effort to avoid legal hassles and negative publicity have begun hosting adult sites exclusively on dedicated servers. Hosting dedicated servers shifts the responsibility, rights and legal aspects associated with the adult industry from the hosts to the customer.

“It gives us better control of the situation especially with child pornography. In France you are considered an accomplice if you host sites with illegal content, ” said Cedric Sirot of French hosting provider, Webcentrale. “We’re not going to register out domains for other people, there is too much problems associated with it, ” added Sirot.

To offset the legal difficulties, van Jaaren expects that there will soon be an international user group or body set up to control the distribution of pornographic content. He believes there will be need for companies like Network Solutions or NIC-NL, the Dutch domain register, to work together with some software that filters out at least some content to exert some control measures.

“But it will never be 100 percent waterproof. The Internet is way too big. You will always have criminals. The adult market is the most lucrative online and people will find loopholes. Maybe we need to set up a board of companies that control adult providers like a stamp of recognition. For example, the Central Bank of Europe controls rules and regulations for the banking industry. For adult companies a system like this can be introduced where proper adult sites will stick together and provide proper content and exclude the illegal stuff.”

At the end of the day, however, perhaps it is the law of supply and demand that will win out. Research group NetValue in 2001 found that more Germans visit adult sites, and spend more time at them, than in any other European country.

In June 2001, more than 5.3 million Germans visited a pornographic site and spent an average of almost an hour per person at such sites. In the prohibitive UK market, close to 4 million home Internet users visited adult sites as did 2.7 million French, and 2.3 million Italians. However, the highest proportion of users was in Spain where 40 percent or 1.46 million people were active home viewers.