Yahoo now bars use of Yahoo! Chat to users under 18, most likely related to this agreement with the New York State Attorney General. A couple of excerpts from the NY AG agreement:
Under the agreement, one of the nation’s leading internet service providers, Yahoo!, has removed and barred the posting of user-created chat rooms with names that promoted sex between minors and adults.
"We need to be vigilant to protect our children," [New York Attorney General] Spitzer said. "It is imperative that parents, industry, prosecutors and lawmakers all work together to identify and address possible threats, and that we teach our children to protect themselves from those who would do them harm."
Attorney General Bruning said: "Millions of people use the internet every day, and many of those are children. Because of this agreement Yahoo! chat rooms are a safer place today than ever before, meaning our children are safer online and predators have fewer opportunities to prey on them."
So if the problem is minors getting in over the heads on chat rooms, an 18-year old cut-off will likely not help this problem. Instead, those same minors will probably lie about their age. In some ways this is even worse, because the predators will now have plausible deniability: "I though everyone in the chat room had to be over 18" they will say.
It's interesting to see how the "protect the children" instinct can go awry. Here's another example of "protect the children" legislation that has surprising side effects:
Woman Ticketed For Sitting On Park Bench With No Kids
The ticket could result in a $1,000 fine and 90 days in jail.
Sept 29, 2005
(http://wfmynews2.com/watercooler/article.aspx?storyid=49163)New York, NY — It's an only in New York story. A woman was given a ticket for sitting on a park bench because she doesn't have children.
The Rivington Playground on Manhattan's East Side has a small sign at the entrance that says adults are prohibited unless they are accompanied by a child. Sandra Catena, 47, said she didn't see the sign when she sat down to wait for an arts festival to start.
Two New York City police officers asked her if she was with a child. When she said no, they gave her a ticket that could bring a $1,000 fine and 90 days in jail.
The city parks department said the rule is designed to keep pedophiles out of city parks, but a parks spokesman told the Daily News that the department hoped police would use some common sense when enforcing the rule.
The spokesman told the paper that ticketing a woman in the park in the middle of the day is not the way you want to enforce the rule.
Associated Press
Alan Wagmeister, Special Projects Producer
Most studies show the most of of the molested children are abused by adult family members, or abused by adults friends of the family. As a society, if we want to reduce child molestation we should focus on detecting and preventing family abuse. Steps that try to target abuse by strangers (like banning sitting on a park bench without children) will not do much to reduce overall child molestation, because stranger abuse is very rare compared to family-related abuse.