A recent Supreme Court decision has highlighted the difficulties of balancing adult rights and children's needs on the Web. A majority of Justices agreed that the Child Pornography Protection Act of 1996, which sought to prohibit "virtual" child pornography distributed via the Internet, was so broadly written that it violated the First Amendment's free speech provisions. ("Virtual" child porn uses either young adult actors with immature appearances, or computer-generated images, rather than real children.)

The now-defunct law is a textbook example of what I think of as the "put more police on the streets" approach to taming the Web: someone has to go find the distributors of offending material, then prosecute them. And the Supreme Court decision points out the weak points of such a strategy in the context of a democratic society and proliferating technology.

Proposed legislation now moving through Congress takes a different tack. The "Dot-Kids" bill (HR 2417), sponsored by Representatives John Shimkus, R-Illinois, and Ed Markey, D-Massachusetts, embodies what I think of as the "playground lady" approach. While police roam the streets keeping order and looking for bad guys, the playground lady has a different job. She keeps the toughs and the bullies and the dirty old men at bay within a clearly defined space. For the playground lady, it doesn't matter what kind of hell is breaking loose outside the playground fence. Inside the fence, though, she makes sure everyone plays nice, or takes a time out.

The Shimkus-Markey bill would establish a "dot-kids" domain name, which could only be used by kid-friendly Web sites. An independent board created by the legislation would set the criteria for voluntary use of the dot-kids designation. Board members would have the tough job of deciding what kinds of content are appropriate—or at least not harmful—to children. The idea, which has strong support from pro-family groups, has been compared by supporters to creating the Web equivalent of a children's section in the library. As such, it rather neatly sidesteps the free-speech pitfalls that swallowed up the Child Pornography Protection Act.

Originally, Shimkus and Markey were pushing for a "top-level" domain name, like the dot-org, dot-com, dot-gov and dot-edu names now in use. The legislation has now been revised, to create dot-kids as a second-level domain name in the existing dot-us domain. (That would mean that approved sites would have a Web address ending in .kids.us.)

Not everyone is excited about this idea. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers—ICANN—declined to include the dot-kids domain name in its latest list expanding the number of top-level domains. ICANN spokesperson Mary Hewitt has called the dot-kids proposal "noble," but too difficult to structure and enforce.

The Child Online Protection Act Commission—the panel charged with finding ways to protect children online—did not recommend the creation of a kid's domain in its report to Congress last year. Commissioners said such a domain would raise difficult issues regarding children's privacy and the international nature of the Internet.

Still, it seems worth a try. It's a concept with built-in limits and shortcomings, but with a certain appeal?think of it as the Web with training wheels. If you take it for a spin, you can't go top speed, you can't pull off any neat tricks, but you can get around Mr. Roger's neighborhood safely.

Sure, older children might want nothing to do with the inherently uncool dot-kids designation. But with children who still love their Blue's Clues pajamas now logging on to the Web in greater numbers, a playground lady—vigilant, but playful—could be just the ticket.