CDA (PICS please)

[Mark Ellis]

Ronnie said:

>As for your other examples, I agree that the software companies should not
>have the control over exactly what is filtered.  I have seen a couple of
>good suggestions as to what should be done, but here is my vision of the
>future.  Every web site will rate themselves based on a rating system, and
>your web browser will allow you to select which of those ratings you wish
>to allow or disallow.  The browser can also be set to not allow access to
>any site that has not rated itself.
>
>I believe this function is already there (I'd have to double check that),
>all that would be needed is to somehow force all web sites to rate themselves.
>
>This would eliminate any of this "why did cyberpatrol block access to my
>site?" stuff if you are rating your own site.  Only you would know what
>exactly your site is about.
>
>The ONLY problem I can see with this is those people who rate thier sites
>as being "ok" (for the sake of arguement) when it actually is something
>most people would want blocked.  There should probably be some non-biased
>organization who would check into complaints about a particular site, and
>some how force them to properly rate themselves.
>
>And of course, any of this can be turned off at any time.
>
>Ronnie

It's been done and it's called PICS.

See: http://www.w3.org/PICS/

Rating your site is simple.  Go to: http://www.rsac.org/, follow the link
for webmasters, answer the questions about your site and you'll be given a
META tag to paste in your homepage's header area.  This whole process takes
about ten minutes.

MSIE 3.0 supports PICS and I'm sure Netscape would too if PICS labeling was
more widely implemented.

Yes, you could deliberately mislabel your site, but you'd be inviting
litigation by doing so.

Third party ratings bureaus also exist. Tim Kambitsch in Dayton OH has
created an experimental one for library use.  See:
http://pics.dayton.lib.oh.us/pics/orc.html  (seems to be down at this
writing)

Since Bill Clinton (I guess he's "the other Bill" now), suggested an
Internet V-chip after the CDA was defeated, I wouldn't be too surprised to
see labeling made mandatory.  If content providers were to be charged for
having their sites rated by a third party, this wouldn't be a welcome
development though.

So I'll be looking for a PICS label at:
http://www.harding.edu/~library/index.html

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Ellis
Computer Services Technician            Phone: 604.231.6410
Richmond Public Library                 Email: mark.ellis at rpl.richmond.bc.ca
Richmond, British Columbia
----------------------------------------------------------------------------