From: ARS
Date: June 13 2005

This note is the first of several updates to all of our webmasters regarding the new Justice Department regulations for 18 U.S.C. 2257 which will go into effect on June 23, 2005. As you know ARS has never managed the content or sites within its portfolio. Our current paysite operator, Storm Media, is doing everything it can to become 100% compliant. However, compliance with the new regulations will require some very important changes to be made within the ARS program. Many of those changes are set forth below. We will follow this with additional correspondences to our affiliates, together with further changes, if any, we feel necessary to insure that we are fully in compliance with the law under the new regulations.

*Free content: At this time ARS will discontinue offering free content for promotion of any of it's sites. If you are using free content for any of the reality sites, you should remove it now. Though Storm Media is in possession of the id's for this content we are not going to be providing them to webmasters and would ask that you remove any “explicit content” advertising these sites. Explicit content includes actual sexual conduct including all varieties of sexual intercourse, vaginal, oral, anal, gay, straight, bestiality, masturbation and sadistic or masochistic abuse. Also, any depictions of the genitals would fall within this definition.

*Promo material: Storm Media will be going through the promo database and removing all explicit banners, these will be replaced in the coming weeks with non-explicit banners that will not require documentation for you to utilize to send traffic to the websites.

*Free Hosted Galleries: Storm Media is in the process of updating the free hosted galleries so they contain only 2557 compliant content. In addition once other changes have been made they will begin an aggressive system that will allow you to create your own galleries picking out content from their content database and then placed into the FHG system thus requiring you to maintain no documentation on the new galleries you create so long as you link to them in a text based manner.

*NexGen FreeHost: Due to the significant liability issues placed on Freehosting firms under the new provisions of 2257, ARS will be discontinuing this service. All material placed on the free host should be removed by June 15th. At that point in time we will delete all the content on the freehost and directories will be replaced with a text link 404 page that includes links to all the ARS sites with your webmaster id in them.

*Site Removal: As has been previously stated Horny Traveler will be removed from the site portfolio, all existing traffic will be directed to Reality Pass with your webmaster id.

We appreciate your patience and understanding in these matters. Even though our content has all been purchased since January of this year, unfortunately due to these new regulations, up to 20% of it will still not be in full compliance with the law and we must and will remove it.

Note only to BYOT Beta Webmasters:
There are two signficant changes to the BYOT system that will occur in the next few weeks. First and foremost,any designs that you currently have online that we have had to remove content from will be placed offline. This will occur on June, 13th., At that time, you will be able to begin swapping out pictures with compliant pics. If a tour is not compliant by June 20th, Storm Media will temporarily take it offline. In addition, to date, no movie tours or combo pic/movie tours are compliant with the new regulations because, the movie studios have provided zero documentation though we have repeatedly requested they do so. Storm Media is diligently working with new, 2257 compliant studios get replacement inventory online as soon as possible.

The second important change is to promo material. All promo material in the system that is explcit will have to be removed and redesigned. Storm Media is reviewing and approving around 500 sets of content a day that is currently showing up in the design area. When you are redesigning your tours and sites, make sure your banners are softcore with no visible genital shots or other explicit material.

ARS

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