Research: Rating Systems Analysis

Proponents of self-regulation of Internet content point to content rating systems as a potential solution to the problem of how to screen objectionable content from children, while admitting that it it unclear how or if such self-regulation could be enforced.

Currently, the industry-standard Internet content rating system is the RSACi system from the Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA), although a new industry-standard content rating system is apparently in development. Another system called PICS provides a standard for encoding various content rating systems so that web browsers and other tools can be designed to incorporate any PICS-compliant content rating system.

The Online Policy Group project explores questions such as these:

• Is it possible for an Internet content rating system to rate Internet content fairly?
• Is there any Internet content rating system that permits ratings with an acceptably low level of bias?
• Do Internet content rating systems inherently discriminate against certain types of content?

Media Coverage

	Congress Mulls New Peer-to-Peer Porn Restrictions
	Members of Congress on Thursday said new laws aimed at restricting pornography on peer-to-peer (P2P) networks might be necessary to protect childrenincluding the possibility of a government-mandated ratings system for files on P2P networks, CNET News.com (March 13, 2003)

	Critics Take Aim at New Filtering Service
	New filtering software that relies on website operators to label their content has found favor with some of the Internet's most popular portals, but developers of commercial filtering products question the value of the system's voluntary approach, Washington Post (June 25, 2002)

	Net Bigwigs Label Sites' Content
	Trying to do their part to make the Web more child-friendly, technology heavyweights including America Online, Microsoft and Yahoo say they've labeled almost every page on their sites with an updated content-assessment system, CNET News.com (June 25, 2002)

Protestors "Click-In" to Disable Website Hundreds of South Koreans shut down the government's Information and Communications Ministry to protest plans for Internet content rating system, The Motley Fool (August 30, 2000)

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Organizations and Related Publications

	OPG Climbs "Great Firewall" at Computers Freedom and Privacy Conference
	OPG Executive Director Will Doherty will lead a plenary entitled "The Great Firewall of China - Internet Filtering and Free Expression" at the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference taking place at the New Yorker Hotel from 10:30am - 12:00 noon, Online Policy Group (April 3, 2003)

	The Spam Problem: Moving Beyond RBLs
	Alternatives to Realtime Blackhole Lists (RBLs) should be actively deployed because of serious well-known problems with the RBL spam filtering technique, Philip Jacob (December 30, 2002)

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