Online media and technology leaders are meeting behind closed doors in New York today to discuss labeling the content of Internet news sites to ensure that news escapes the content-purging effect of censorware.
Several editors from influential Web sites - including Neil Budde of The Wall Street Journal Interactive and Jim Kinsella of MSNBC - will take part. Nevertheless, the working press is barred from covering the event, which is sponsored by the Internet Content Coalition.
The ICC is composed of Wired Ventures, The Journal, MSNBC CNET, Time Warner, AdWeek, NBC, Business Week, Playboy, Sony, Prodigy, CMP Media, and others.
The proposal under discussion involves adding meta tags to news sites to allow content to bypass content-filtering software. The proposal raises several questions, chief among them being who should decide what is and what is not a "news" site.
Today's meeting is preliminary, and no final decisions are expected to emerge from it.
