WASHINGTON - After coming up short in a first effort, a Democratic lawmaker has again introduced legislation that would roll back a ban on Internet gambling enacted when Republicans led Congress.

The legislation, introduced this month by Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, would allow the Treasury Department to license and regulate online gambling companies that serve American customers. Under the current law, approved by Congress in September 2006, financial institutions are banned from handling transactions made to and from Internet gambling sites...

Read more at: http://www.nytimes.com.

Children's charities are backing a plan to make web retailers ensure young people cannot buy age-restricted goods.

A private members bill going through the House of Lords is calling for it to be mandatory for web retailers to adopt age verification systems.

The bill on age-checking has the backing of charities who say it is too easy for children to buy alcohol, knives and violent video games online.

A check on twelve sites found that thorough checks were not being done.

Read more at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/.

Back in March, Second Life operators Linden Lab announced plans to create a new segregated area for adult content in their popular virtual world, and announced plans to solicit feedback from Second Life users, content creators, and business operators to work out the details. Now, the Lindens have a plan to deal with adult-oriented content in Second Life, which includes a three-tiered rating system, search filtering capabilities, and a separate "adult continent" the the virtual world's most explicit content. The move makes Second Life a more appealing place for businesses, educational institutions, organizations, and others (including many residents) who want to take advantage of virtual world capabilities without being (sometimes literally) pelted with adult-oriented content; however, viewed another way, Linden Lab's policy makes Second Life essentially the only virtual world that specifically welcomes adult content...and that's very much in keeping with Second Life's open-ended, diverse, individualistic style.

"From the beginning, Linden Lab has led the way in the development of virtual worlds and has set the standard on many cultural and social issues involved with virtual communities," said Linden Lab CEO Mark Kingdon, in a statement. "Preferences and community standards vary tremendously across industries, countries and cultures; our goal is to retain as much of the freedom as possible while continuing to push the medium and our platform forward."

Read more at: http://news.digitaltrends.com/.

IT is every parent's nightmare. We saw it in the news a few weeks ago - a 15-year-old girl runs off to France with a 49-year-old she met on the internet. The reality is that this generation is growing up with internet access in the classroom, the living room and the bedroom and are now conducting their social lives online.

Guidance is available on how to encourage responsible use if you look hard enough, but surely there is also a legal framework in place to make the companies offering these online services protect youngsters on-line? Not as much as you might think.

In January we saw the Online Age Verification Bill, presented to parliament demanding that the provision of "age restricted" goods and services is dealt with as rigorously in the virtual world as it is in the real world...

Read more at: http://news.scotsman.com/.

Addressing the need to protect teens and prevent the increase of problem gambling has to be a priority for online casinos if they wish US legislators to overlook accusations by family groups that the Internet gambling industry is socially irresponsible and dangerous. A new study in Oregon suggests tight age restrictions for free play at online gambling sites might be a wise move politically as well as morally.

Almost every Internet casino has a section to play for fun, in which no money is gambled. Frequently, the process for registering for free play is far less vigorous than that to gamble for money. While some ask the age of the player, there is much less concern about verifying identity and age before allowing the new patron to try out online casino gaming...

Read more at: http://www.usaonlinecasinos.us/articles/123/1/282/Free-Online-Casino-Games-May-Need-Stricter-Age-Verification.html.