MarketingVOX: The House of Representatives rushed through and overwhelmingly approved a bill that could ban not only MySpace but also Amazon, Slashdot, LinkedIn and other sites from schools and libraries.

The House, by a 410-15 vote, on Thursday approved a bill to make "chat rooms" and "social networking sites" inaccessible to minors who use terminals at publicly funded libraries and schools, writes CNET. But the bill's language is imprecise enough to categorize other sites among the censored - those that allow users to post profiles, include personal information and allow "communication among users," for example.

The bill - the Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA) - leaves it up to the Federal Communications Commission to define which sites fit the bill. Republicans apparently crafted DOPA after polling to determine issues that resonate with suburban voters; the bill is part of a strategy to retain the GOP's majority in Congress. "Social networking sites...and chat rooms have allowed sexual predators to sneak into homes and solicit kids," said Rep. Ted Poe, a Texas Republican.

Opponents of DOPA said it had been rushed through the process - rewritten on Wednesday night and not approved by a congressional committee. "So now we are on the floor with a piece of legislation poorly thought out...which carries with it that curious smell of partisanship and panic [and] is going to be notorious for its ineffectiveness and, of course, for its political benefits to some of the members hereabout," said Rep. John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat.

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