zlacker

> include something like a TXT record

The people writing these laws don't know about DNS.

This isn't really relevant because what is considered "suitable for under 18s" varies wildly per country. Some countries ban rainbow flags, others will happily sell alcohol to 16-year-olds. Plus, 99.99% of websites don't care about this and will be blocked by default if you block the "unknown" category. Grandma isn't going to call their ISP and ask to unblock pornography because the American knitting forum she's on doesn't know how to add TXT records.

Technical solutions don't solve political problems.

> The majority of the big ISPs would likely block the "over 18" category by default.

Existing UK legislation already requires them to do that.

>>jeroen+(OP)
The UK has a standard list of sites that need to be flagged "over 18 only in the uk", that's the list of sites that will need to be added to a list which ISPs can block by default.

Putting the onus on the ISPs operating in the UK rather than the sites operating globally is much easier to implement than trying to enforce your laws on foreign companies.

That's if you want the outcome to block a certain list of sites by default.

As you say in reality we already have that. The question thus is what's the real point of the move, because it's not to stop 15 year olds jacking off.