Please note: The reports in this section are not product reviews or tests; they're meant to spotlight options for you to consider, as well as milestones in children's online-safety technology development. Comments from readers on their own experiences with these products and services are most welcome - and, with your permission, we publish them. Do email us your own product reviews anytime!
Web ratings: An international challenge (Sept. 10, '99 issue)
It's been a big week for what might be called the slowest, most "democratic" approach to children's online safety: Web site ratings systems. Which we know raises two questions: 1) Why the slowest approach, and 2) why was this an important week?
Q#1: Rating Web sites is like the tortoise to the hare that represents all other online-safety products and services. The reasons: It's an industry-wide self-regulatory effort, and it's global (because the Web is). Like movie studios, Web publishers would have to let the public know whether their sites include profanity, violence, sexually explicit material, etc. Then they'd all have to use an Internet standard like PICS technology (see the World Wide Web Consortium's PICS FAQ) that "tells" our browsers how the site is rated. And Web publishers all over the world would have to comply for the system to work. But voluntary self-regulation isn't the only difficulty: Free-speech advocates all over the world say Internet ratings are a short cut to censorship, making it easier for governments to censor content on the Internet, so they're trying to apply the brakes. Also, users - the "marketplace," so to speak - don't know enough about Web ratings to demand publishers' compliance or government support.
Which brings us to why this was an important week for this online-safety option: The Bertelsmann Foundation - associated with Bertelsmann A.G., one of the world's biggest media conglomerates - held a Web-ratings summit this week to discuss the most ambitious proposal on the subject yet. Corporate executives, children's advocates, free-speech advocates, government representatives, and experts in law and technology were all there. One effort they discussed was that of the Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA, in Cambridge, England, and the Washington, D.C., area) to make the US's ratings system an international one, according to Wired News. The New York Times and ZDNet both emphasized the opposition faced by the ICRA and the Bertelsmann Foundation from free-speech advocates. (There's a page in the GetNetWise.org online-safety site that discusses US-based ratings efforts to date.)
We'll let you know if any conclusions were reached at the summit, but - for now - the bottom line is: The summit was a step forward for an important initiative and discussion. Something involving this many corporations, constituencies, and governments by definition moves slowly, but visibility and discussion spell progress.
We mentioned two steps forward. The second, we propose, is a relatively new and unsung online-safety tool available in the United States (we understand they're moving on to more marketing). We'll tell you why it, too, advances the discourse….
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