Flawed Online Dating Bill Being Pushed in New Jersey

Billosaur writes "According to a report on Ars Technica, a committee of the New Jersey Assembly is trying to push an on-line dating bill even though it contains significant flaws. The Internet Dating Safety Act would require dating web sites that interact with customers in New Jersey to indicate whether they do criminal background checks and if people who fail such checks are still allowed to register with the site. 'The backers of the New Jersey Internet Dating Safety Act undoubtedly feel that the law provides at least a measure of protection despite its flaws. In this case, however, users of such sites are probably better off assuming that their personal safety remains a personal responsibility, rather than placing faith in a background check that has little chance of uncovering any information on a person attempting to hide it.'"

Legislation pushed by True.com?

[algorithmagic]

I read a couple years back that True.com is pushing state legislatures to adopt such bills as a boost to their own business model (and a hindrance to their competitors). Anyone know if this is the case here?

And if the person DOES have a record?

[Ngarrang]

A person goes to jail as punishment. Once out, that punishment should not continue, with society treating the person as a pariah. That leads to recidivism. Not all crimes make that person a danger to be avoided. There are some crimes, yes, that if the person committed them, might make you pause to trust them in that situation again. But, let us not treat the background check as a magic bullet.

Criminal background checks often wrong

[LM741N]

Criminal background checks are often wrong if the person has had his case dismissed or expunged. There are so many data brokers who collect this information that its hard to change it. They pick up the initial arrest but then neglect to pick up whether the person had his case thrown out or expunged. Thats especially the case for DUII where people go through diversion and then have their record expunged. But they are never able to escape that history of DUII.

Re:Legislation pushed by True.com? YEP!

[lax-goalie]

The Virginia Legislature considered this a couple of years ago. The day that the bill was considered by the House Committeee on Science and Technology, a pair of lobbyists (from a pretty high-power firm, at that) spent the day taking the head of True.com around meeting legislators. During the day, they met with a pretty good chunk of the committee, and most of the Leadership from both parties.

In the end though, the bill was very quickly, and very literally, laughed out of committee. I kind of felt bad for the True.com guy, because even though he was treated very politely, it was pretty clear that the agenda item was all about getting the bill killed in as little time as possible.

The sad thing was that before the bill made it to Sci-Tech, it was approved by the "Courts of Justice" committee, which considers general laws. CoJ is made up exclusively by attorneys, Sci-Tech has a pretty good number of engineers and technology people in its membership. Go figure.

Re:What do you expect from the "tube" guys?

[Anonymous Coward]

True, but the parent has a point. When a more tech-savvy generation steps in and takes over lawmaking, we'll hopefully see fewer legislative proposals that clearly misinterpret the way the internet fundamentally works.

Right now, we have a situation where technology and lifestyle in general is moving faster than the judicial system can keep up with. Generation 1 (we'll say) are all over 40 now, and are sitting in all the high-up positions. They grew up in a Generation 1 lifestyle, where people mostly met face to face, and everyone was accountable for their contributions to the culture. Things have changed since then. Generation 2, now in their 20s, are living in an entirely different way. Social interactions are different now, communication is different in general, education is different.

Without much of an understanding of the Generation 2 lifestyle, these Generation 1 lawmakers are stumbling blind. Most of them couldn't tell you how the internet works, nor what it means to participate in social networking. Yet they still try to pass laws and tell those of us who live online what we should and shouldn't be doing, even if their cries don't actually make sense. "I've got no idea how forums work, but since I'm 53 and therefore know more about the world than the youngsters of today, I feel that I have the right to propose stupid laws, such as forcing everyone who makes a comment on a blog to supply their full name so they can be found later if their comment turns out to be against the law."

Or better yet, "Let's force content-sharing sites to moderate what people upload, by hand, to ensure they aren't infringing anyone's copyright!" Yeah, that's a great idea. Let's force Google to hire thousands of people to sit there processing user videos 24/7 and deciding if they should be uploaded or not. Never mind being able to watch the video within a week of submitting it.

What Generation 1 doesn't understand is that the internet is built by the people of the world, not by authorized institutions, not by a specific populous of a specific country, and not under any kind of standard set of rules. You can't stop people from pretending to be someone else, or supplying fake details, or trolling forums with disgusting pictures just because they're bored. You cannot ever stop it, and Generation 1 shouldn't be proposing ridiculous and unenforceable laws just to make it appear that they understand the issues of today. When Generation 2 takes over the courtrooms, the online world will be a much, much better place.