About 1 percent of Web sites indexed by Google and Microsoft are sexually explicit, according to a U.S. government-commissioned study.
Government lawyers introduced the study in court this month as the Justice Department seeks to revive the 1998 Child Online Protection Act , which required commercial Web sites to collect a credit card number or other proof of age before allowing Internet users to view material deemed "harmful to minors."
The U.S. Supreme Court blocked the law in 2004, ruling it also would cramp the free speech rights of adults to see and buy what they want on the Internet. The court said technology such as filtering software may work better than such laws.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which challenged the law on behalf of a broad range of Web publishers, said the study supports its argument that filters work well.
The study concludes that the strictest filter tested, AOL's Mature Teen, blocked 91 percent of the sexually explicit Web sites in indexes maintained by Google and Microsoft's MSN.
Filters with less restrictive settings blocked at least 40 percent of sexually explicit sites, according to the study of random Web sites by Philip B. Stark, a statistics professor at University of California, Berkeley.
"Filters are more than 90 percent effective, according to Stark," ACLU attorney Chris Hansen said Tuesday during a break in the trial. "Also, with filters, it's up to the parents how to use it, whereas COPA requires a one-solution-fits-all [approach]."
COPA follows Congress' unsuccessful 1996 effort to ban online pornography. The Supreme Court in 1997 deemed key portions of that law unconstitutional because it was too vague and trampled on adults' rights. It would have criminalized putting adult-oriented material online where children can find it.
The 1998 law narrowed the restrictions to commercial Web sites and defined indecency more specifically.
In 2000, Congress also passed a law requiring schools and libraries to block porn using software filters if they receive certain federal funds. The high court upheld that law in 2003.
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