This Web site is rated G. That one is rated X. Parents, set your kid's browser accordingly.
The concept of rating and blocking Web sites, like movies and TV, sounds simple enough. And, while attempts to impose ratings are nearly as old as the commercial Internet itself, ratings systems have yet to establish a foothold.
Organizers of the Internet Content Summit taking place this week in Munich, think they can fix that.
"What we're trying to do is take existing ratings systems and turn them into a truly international system," said Stephen Balkam, executive director of the Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA), one of the key participants in the summit.
Government representatives worldwide, non-governmental organizations, and advocacy groups gathered in Munich will focus on two initiatives seeking to create European content ratings systems. The conference is organized and funded by the Bertelsmann Foundation in cooperation with the Internet Content Rating for Europe (INCORE) project.
The Bertelsmann Foundation, also a member of ICRA, will present a memorandum on self-regulation at the summit, which outlines international proposals to regulate content on the Net.
INCORE, an EU-funded initiative that links non-governmental organizations and industry, plans to introduce a similar proposal. INCORE seeks to regulate content without government intervention.
"We have been actively participating in those efforts to try and create as good a system as possible," Balkam said.
The summit will examine four areas put forth in the Bertelsmann memorandum: self-regulation as an Internet philosophy; a telephone hotline for reporting sites that post illegal content; how law enforcement can apply existing law to Net content; and ratings and filtering systems.
The latter, and most controversial, proposal would use RSACi, an existing US ratings initiative, as the basis for an international ratings system. RSACi stands for the Recreational Software Advisory Council. The US organization has formally folded into ICRA, which is based in England.
The hope is that an international system will make ratings more ubiquitous on the Web's most heavily trafficked sites, from porn sites to children's sites to search engines.
Past efforts to establish ratings standard have had limited success. Few parents realize the technology exists in their browsers, and few sites comply with current ratings systems.
Balkam said that's because, unlike the Net, the systems are US-centric.
"With RSACi, it was an American response to an American situation -- which was the 1996 threat, and realization of, the [doomed US Net content law] CDA. Everyone on the board was American."
