2257 Compliance questions

[MorganGrayson]

I bookmarked it, glanced at it...and muttered "yikes."

But thank you, JR. I will read through it and attempt to untangle it.

The awkward position in which I find myself is in "mentoring novices." When I was a newbie, there were people saying patiently "no, you can NOT use newsgroup photos on your website. You must have a license for every image you use."

OK, that was a simple, easy-to-follow direction. At that point, the worst thing that could happen to a webmaster was getting "fired" by their sponsor and not getting paid.

Now, we have a whole new ball game. In order to mentor novices, we have to be able not only to tell them how to build the best website they can in order to convert their sponsors...but how to keep themselves out of jail.

It helps to understand fully what 2257 is all about, but for a short version, what do you think of this:

Only use "reliable" (a word to be defined later by...somebody) sponsors and their content, who provide the 2257 information for both their content AND their banners.

Only use "reliable" (see above) content providers who provide 2257 information for their content.

Keep *all* 2257 information on a page on the website you are building, linked to your index page by the link entitled "2257 Compliance Information."

Do not use any type of content that anyone claims is exempt, as US webmasters are not themselves exempt, and it's better to be safe than sorry.

Keep all hardcore images off the index page, whether it is 2257 compliant or not.

And since we're chatting...do you feel that freesite webmasters should now make the effort to provide an actual exit *link* to a nonadult sponsor/site (preferably one of their own) as opposed to saying "hit the back button of your browser" or assuming surfers would be smart enough to do so?

I'd like to be able to feel that we've done all we can in training Oprano novice webmasters in staying legal.