Like Dick Easton I'm generally in favor of protecting children from inappropriate material, and like him, I'm concerned that if I keep writing and sending these newsletters in the same manner that I have for the past nine years, I could be sent to jail.

In both, Utah and Michigan, laws went into effect July 1 that aim to protect children from spam and ads. The problem (as Eastman has put it) is that you can be made responsible if you send a newsletter or emailing to another website and that person has ads the fall into their interpretation of inappropriate for children under 18. (This not only includes pornography, but car rental ads, mortage/loan ads, and so forth.) You could also be held responsible for an old link where the webmaster has changed ads sometime after.

I agree with the last comment: "Why do people and legislators expect the government to protect everyone from objectionable material. That is the job of parents, and if they don't or choose not to, let THEM suffer the consequences, not everyone."

I know it's tricky (it's a conversation I've had many times) but the law above will be mostly ineffective, only catching the small time people who are doing the right thing, but not stopping those that really want to get the message ago

Taking it a bit further, is a child going to be harmed by an ad for a mortgage? They should know what a mortgage is, and it's the banks responsibility to filter out the loans. Same for car rentals.

A mortgage - my local newspaper sites are full of adverts for them, and without ads, who is going to pay for these sites?