CP80 – Internet Channel Initiative

Posted on March 14, 2006 by Richard K Miller

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At the Utah Valley Business Expo last week I ran into a company that is fighting pornography — CP80. I had subscribed to their newsletter a while ago but didn’t know they were a Utah company. I met their president and some of the employees and was impressed by how strongly they feel about the issue.

As a bit of background, Internet traffic is divided into separate “channels” which are called “ports”. For example, port 80 is for web pages, port 443 for secure web pages, port 25 for email between ISP’s, and port 5190 for AOL Instant Messenger. There are over 65,000 ports in all, and many of them go unused.

CP80 is advocating that pornographic web sites be transmitted, by law, over a separate port. (The company was originally named Clean Port 80, implying that only “clean”, non-pornographic material should be transmitted over port 80.) This is similar to separate cable channels for TV shows.

If all pornographic material were transmitted over a separate port, it would be easy for filtering software to work — simply disallow content from the “porn channel”. This would make it easy for parents and schools to protect children from pornography. As it is now, internet filtering programs generally don’t work well because they have to maintain a database of “bad sites” or look for “bad words” in the text.

Like the idea of a separate TLD for porn sites, CP80 will only work if all porn publishers are required by law to transmit over a separate channel and the law well enforced.

If CP80 can get the right legislation passed, this is an intuitive solution to the problem. They’ve already met with all the Utah Congressmen. Senator Orrin Hatch said pornography is a “clear and present danger to children and families,” an interesting choice of words since those words represent the legal basis for limiting free speech.

More: Utahn tries new tack in battle over Net porn

Legal fight against pornography

Posted on March 12, 2006 by Richard K Miller

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This week I met someone who I believe will be a hero and role model to me for the rest of my life.

One of my life ambitions — though not the strongest — has been to go to law school and become an attorney. (I worked one summer at a great law firm in Las Vegas and really enjoyed the work, the people, and the “banker’s hours”.) I envisioned practicing law for ~20 years to support my family, then retire early and use my legal degree and experience to mount a legal front against pornography.

This week I attended a luncheon with John Harmer, Chairman of the Lighted Candle Society, who has been doing this for decades. Mr. Harmer practiced law in California, became a state senator, and then in 1974 was appointed to be Lt. Governor under Governor Ronald Reagan. He has been litigating against pornographers since 1964. At the luncheon he explained the history behind the battle:

In 1960s porn was produced by organized crime. Now there are four publicly-traded hard-core porn companies on Wall Street.
In the 60s, it was easy to get a conviction in court against lewd material. Now mainstream magazines like Cosmopolitan and Vogue contain material more lewd that the material with which Mr. Harmer obtained convictions in the 60′s.
Litigating against pornography became harder in 1973 after the Miller vs. California Supreme Court decision, which sets three criteria for defining what is considered lewd, one of which is that lewd material violates “contemporary community standards”.
Up until 2004, AT&T made $220M/year from an adult TV channel it owned, one of many mainstream companies that profit from pornography.
In 2004 Forbes said pornography was a $56 billion industry.
The porn industry has used fake witnesses in court, who have received phony sexology degrees from mail-away colleges, to argue that pornography doesn’t violate “contemporary community standards”.
Pornography is a huge productivity drain on businesses — 70% of pornography usage happens at work.
Cherilyn Bacon, who hosted the luncheon, asked Kevin Rollins of Dell about pornography when he spoke at the BYU Management Society meeting last week and was impressed with his answer. Mr. Rollins said Dell has a zero tolerance policy for pornography — employees found using it are immediately terminated.

The point of the luncheon was to raise funds for the Lighted Candle Society. They have five goals or “smooth stones” (a reference to the David and Goliath story) — Prevention, Action Programs, Research, Guarding the Light, and Healing. Money donated to the society might fund, for instance, medical research to show the negative physiological effects of pornography or resources to help local attorneys properly prosecute pornography cases.

Come with me to the Lighted Candle Society’s fundraising dinner in May. A table of 10 costs $1500 so I’m hoping to get at least 9 other people to pitch in $150 each to go in on a table with me. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland will be the speaker that night, and the money will go to what I consider a great cause. It’s on May 3 at 7:00 PM at the Little America Hotel in SLC. If you’re interested, leave a comment below or email me at richardkmiller AT gmail.

I believe time will prove that pornography is damaging enough to families and societies that it’s worth fighting like an illegal drug. I also believe there are people ensnared in it that want our help to escape it. We can be the ones to do it.

U.S. Constitution not for everybody

Posted on June 27, 2005 by Richard K Miller

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Today I heard some quotes from the Founding Fathers on the U.S. Constitution. When pornography and flag-burning are legal, but prayer in schools is not, you start to wonder if something is wrong with the Constitution until you get insight into the mindset of the Founders:

Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. — John Adams, 2nd President of the United States

My open letter to Google

Posted on June 23, 2005 by Richard K Miller

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Dear Larry Page, Sergey Brin & Co.,

I am a huge Google/Gmail/GoogleMaps/GoogleSMS fan and a web developer. If rumors are true about your developing a merchant system to compete with PayPal Pro services, I will be excited to use it.

However, after seeing an open letter from pornographer Sam Sugar to Google. I must express my concerns with a Google payment system supporting the adult industry. Contrary to Mr. Sugar’s rhetoric, support the adult/porn industry is the wrong thing to do. It goes against Google’s mantra of doing no evil. Pornography is a filthy tar in our society; common maybe, but definitely the stuff of back alleys and less-reputable companies. Don’t let pornography tarnish the Google name. I personally would avoid and discredit a Google payment system if it were to support the porn industry. PayPal, who has chosen to avoid the financially and morally risky adult industry, is the baseline. If Google does at least this much, I have no doubts that the Google payment system will be the best in the world.

Richard K Miller

APC 2

Posted on April 21, 2005 by Richard K Miller

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I’ve blogged before about wanting to start or be involved in an Anti-Pornography Campaign.

I saw a funny commercial on TV the other day and wasn’t surprised at the end to see, when the product was revealed, that it was a beer ad. Beer companies almost always have entertaining commercials. Not surprising — they have huge war chests of cash to afford expensive ad agencies that can make creative commercials. Budweiser reported having $228M at the end of 2004. Why so much cash? Huge profit margins. Above-average profit margins. For 2004, Budweiser reported a 15% net profit margin on $14.9B in revenue. Compare that with the 2004 net profit margins of other profitable companies: GE (10.9%), IBM (8.8%), Dell (6.2%), JetBlue Airways (3.7%), Apple Computer (3.3%). I’m not sure if it would be fair to include Microsoft among the companies I compare (22.2% net profit margin for 2004) since it is a convicted monopolist.

But that’s exactly my point about the beer companies. You learn in economics classes that the only way to consistently earn above-average returns is to have an economic rent — e.g., a patent for a lucrative invention, ownership of natural resources, a monopoly position in the market, etc. Without the economic “rent”, no one can maintain above-average returns because competitors enter the market place and drive profit margins toward zero. It’s hard for the every-day corporation to be profitable. Budweiser, on the other hand, had similar net profit margins (14-15%) for 2003 and 2002 as well.

My guess is that if we had financial statements for pornography companies we’d see similarly high profit margins — probably even higher than beer. Alcohol is widely known to be an addictive substance, and the same understanding about the addictive properties of pornography is growing too. Therein lies the economic “rent” — alcohol and porn companies bank on selling addictive substances, thus “monopolizing” your morality. I wonder if antitrust law has any place in the legal fight against pornography on the grounds of pornography being a monopoly on morality.

richard miller