W3 Self-Regulation?

[Where's Tipper when you need her? Answer:]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:   Ron Warris, President, Internet Filtering Systems, Inc.
phone:     1-403-258-5804, email: warrisr@colt.t8000.com
Web:       www.tenagra.com/ifsi

DEMOCRATIC WORLD-WIDE WEB SELF-REGULATION ANNOUNCED

CALGARY, ALBERTA, CANADA -- October 30, 1995 -- Internet Filtering Systems,
Inc. (IFSI) today announced Net Shepherd, the first product designed to
democratically rate and filter World Wide Web sites and selectively
supervise access.

Net Shepherd is the first PICS-compliant rating and filtering solution.
Under the auspices of The World Wide Web Consortium, PICS (Platform for
Internet Content Selection) is a cross-industry working group whose goal is
to facilitate the development of technologies to give users control over
the kinds of material to which they and their children have access.

According to Ron Warris, president of IFSI, "There are a number of
companies offering filtering solutions. What is really needed is a rating
solution. How do you go about reviewing and rating 8.5 million volatile
documents on the Internet? Our approach will allow the people who surf the
Internet to be the people who rate the Internet. With Net Shepherd,
parents, educators and other concerned organizations will be able to
voluntarily participate in the rating process.

Mr. Warris continues, "Net Shepherd will also provide parents with the
ability to selectively filter documents viewed by their children. Parents
can choose from a variety of rating databases that represent the
accumulated ratings from others who hold similar views and philosophies.
Organizations that wish to create rating databases for their subscribers
will also be able to use Net Shepherd. You'll be able to subscribe to the
Good Housekeeping database or the Lutheran Church database or the ACLU
database. Take your pick.

"The Internet has always been self-regulating and special-interest-group
oriented. Now the World Wide Web can be as well."

IFSI's mission is to become the preferred and premier provider of Internet
rating systems and services for individual consumers, concerned groups and
associations, as well as other filter software developers. A World-Wide Web
site currently contains basic information about IFSI, and will evolve over
the coming weeks into an extensive resource for those interested in
Internet content filtering. It is located at URL

<http://www.tenagra.com/ifsi/>

From the Web page:

Internet Filtering Systems, Inc. is the developer of Net Shepherd, the
first product designed to democratically rate and filter World Wide Web
sites and selectively supervise access. The Internet has always been
self-regulating and special-interest-group oriented. Now the World Wide Web
can be as well.

Net Shepherd is the first PICS-compliant rating and filtering solution.
Under the auspices of The World Wide Web Consortium, PICS (Platform for
Internet Content Selection) is a cross-industry working group whose goal is
to facilitate the development of technologies to give users control over
the kinds of material to which they and their children have access.

Net Shepherd allows the people who surf the Internet to be the people who
rate the Internet. With Net Shepherd, parents, educators and other
concerned organizations will be able to voluntarily participate in the
rating process. Net Shepherd will also provide parents with the ability to
selectively filter documents viewed by their children. Parents can choose
from a variety of rating databases that represent the accumulated ratings
from others who hold similar views and philosophies. Organizations that
wish to create rating databases for their subscribers will also be able to
use Net Shepherd.

IFSI's mission is to become the preferred and premier provider of Internet
rating systems and services for individual consumers, concerned groups and
associations, as well as other filter software developers.


[cf. PICS (Platform for Internet Content Selection) at
  <http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/PICS/>]

On Tue, 31 Oct 1995, Dave Del Torto wrote:

> [Where's Tipper when you need her? Answer:]

Hey! Lay off the divine Ms. G!

There's actually a big difference between labelling and censorship, 
though there's always the danger that once material has been labelled, 
Ralph Reed and his merry gang of cross burners will try to ban 
information bearing certain labels (the ol' gateway effect).

Of course, if the labeling information isn't signed, the it's useless. 
Oh, and if people vote on labels, you really, really need secret voting 
protocols; this information can be very sensitive if it can be tied back 
to the voters.

Simon
p.s.
 What if instead of approving or banning drugs, the FDA instead just 
issued labels, and left the choices to the customer and his or her 
insurance agency...

---
(defun modexpt (x y n)  "computes (x^y) mod n"
  (cond ((= y 0) 1)   ((= y 1) (mod x n))
	((evenp y) (mod (expt (modexpt x (/ y 2) n) 2) n))
	(t (mod (* x (modexpt x (1- y) n)) n))))

DDT writes:
# [Where's Tipper when you need her? Answer:]

Simon writes:
> Hey! Lay off the divine Ms. G!

Urgh. If I believed in a Hell, I'd expect the Parents Music Resource Center
to have its HQ there.

> There's actually a big difference between labelling and censorship, 

Agreed, to the extent that providers are not required to label their
products/services. But to my mind, the PICS software crosses the line between
labelling and censorship. In particular, it is a tool with which parents will
censor what their children encounter. 

Before Nathan Zook levels me, (hi :) let me elaborate. Such censorship seems
to be inevitable/necessary given the relationship between parents and their
children in our society. Parents are largely held liable for their
childrens' actions, while children generally are not responsible for their 
own actions. I believe this arrangement is unfair, but until/unless it
changes, parents must be given certain powers over those for whose actions 
they may be held liable.

We've hashed over this stuff several times before, so I'm not sure how much
sense it makes to reiterate it.

-Futplex <futplex@pseudonym.com>