It is the responsibility of parents to monitor and control what their children have access to on the internet, just as it is their responsiblity to monitor what TV shows their children view.

The idea online businesses having to employ phonebanks of specialists training in recognizing adult voices is ridiculous. This effectively prevents a business, and especially a small business, from operating a high profit, low cost on-line business. The entire point of engaging in on-line business is to reduce or eliminate payroll costs.

Furthermore, the requirement of a credit card number for age verification is an invasion of privacy. My credit card is used only for purchases, I do not want access to my finances, as can be gained by a credit card number, distributed to any website which wishes to collect some information about me. If I setup a personalized section of a website, (such as amazon.com), I refuse to provide my credit card number until the time of a specific transaction.

Simply put, Verifiable Parental Consent is a farce. There is no sure-fire way of age verification on the internet, which would not burden on-line business with enormous costs. Look to Europe for a model on privacy and parenting. It is the duty of the parent to raise their children, not the media, not the schools, and not the internet.

I'd welcome any comments.