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UK age verification legislation will lead to a porn habit database (archive)
The country is eager to protect children from porn. It's a worthy goal, mind you, given that research shows that exposing kids to porn can be damaging. Unfortunately, it's a quixotic goal, given that porn is impossible to block. Nevertheless, the UK is now on the brink of creating a database of the country's porn habits.
It also seems poised to hand the age verification piece of that puzzle over to an outfit that Vice refers to as "the shady company that controls the majority of free porn tube sites." That company is called MindGeek. Vice likens it to the Walmart of porn. Britain's leading obscenity lawyer, Myles Jackman, says it supposedly owns about 90% of tube sites on the internet, and it didn't get that way by making friends in the industry.
[...] And now, MindGeek, the WalMart of porn, is getting ready to become even more filthy rich by having maneuvered itself into the position of becoming gatekeeper for consumers of porn, be they adults or kids who don't know how to use a virtual private network (VPN). It's not a done deal quite yet, but MindGeek has had several conversations with officials. It's also currently pushing its own age verification platform, AgeID. If selected, Britons could be dealing with AgeID as the principal gate between themselves and their porn.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by crafoo on Thursday November 30 2017, @09:30PM (6 children)
So this is the wedge they will use to make mandatory online identification a reality. UK is lost.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 30 2017, @09:39PM (3 children)
First they came for the wankers...
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday November 30 2017, @09:48PM (2 children)
> First they came for the wankers...
Doesn't work. Everybody's a wanker, health permitting.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by maxwell demon on Thursday November 30 2017, @10:41PM (1 child)
Those who haven't yet reached puberty aren't.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 01 2017, @03:32PM
FWIW "Masturbation is considered normal when performed by children,[33][34][35] even in early infancy.[28]"
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masturbation#Frequency.2C_age.2C_and_sex [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 30 2017, @09:50PM
A lot of wasted effort if they stop halfway. Absolutely no reason for the progression to be interrupted.
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Friday December 01 2017, @02:22AM
Don't worry, In the US it is worse. Thanks to removing Network Neutrality and Privacy rules, I expect the super cookie issues on mobile phones to become common place on wired internet providers.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-lazarus-20150203-column.html [latimes.com]
Technologically, it can be done... Its just a matter of mapping your MAC address connecting to your ISP to your account. Yes, if you know what you are doing you can change your MAC address, but many cable companies require it to stay the same in order to connect to their network.
You may think that they would be unwilling to go this far... maybe initially, but you know advertising companies would pay them to identify their users... and nothing stops corporate greed.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P