121. Anonymity is important to Internet users who seek

["strick (henry strickland)" <strick@versant.com>]

>From the CDA decision:     ( http://www.vtw.org/speech/decision.html )



				     Anonymity

		  121. Anonymity is important to Internet users who seek

	to access sensitive information, such as users of the Critical

	Path AIDS Project's Web site, the users, particularly gay youth,

	of Queer Resources Directory, and users of Stop Prisoner Rape

	(SPR).  Many members of SPR's mailing list have asked to remain

	anonymous due to the stigma of prisoner rape.




Anonymous remailers are mentioned in this secction:




		   Obstacles to Age Verification on the Internet



		  90.  There is no effective way to determine the

	identity or the age of a user who is accessing material through

	e-mail, mail exploders, newsgroups or chat rooms.  An e-mail

	address provides no authoritative information about the

	addressee, who may use an e-mail "alias" or an anonymous

	remailer.  There is also no universal or reliable listing of e-

	mail addresses and corresponding names or telephone numbers, and

	any such listing would be or rapidly become incomplete.  For

	these reasons, there is no reliable way in many instances for a

	sender to know if the e-mail recipient is an adult or a minor.

	The difficulty of e-mail age verification is compounded for mail

	exploders such as listservs, which automatically send information

	to all e-mail addresses on a sender's list.  Government expert

	Dr. Olsen agreed that no current technology could give a speaker

	assurance that only adults were listed in a particular mail

	exploder's mailing list.