overview
on the web
Dublin Core
RDF
PICS
PURLs
URNs
|
PICS
Many of the filters,
blocking mechanisms and other content management regimes
highlighted in our censorship guide
are based on the Platform for Internet Content Selection (PICS),
a metadata-based standard for internet content.
PICS was developed in
association with the World Wide Web Consortium as part of
that body's interest in the 'architecture' of the
Internet. Despite W3C endorsement it's never really
got off the ground.
It provides for tagging of web pages,
eg allows them to be labelled as containing violent or
sexually-explicit material and thereby excludes access
from particular browsers. It does not specify the nature
of the labels or their derivation.
PICS is a building block
for the Recreational Software Advisory Council (RSAC)
rating scheme administered by the Internet Content
Rating Association (ICRA),
an industry body that's received some degree of
endorsement from the EU but is frequently criticised for
overstating the effectiveness of its solutions.
As we
noted in our censorship
guide, the recent report
of the ICRA Advisory Board could be construed as
'back to the drawing board'.
Lawrence Lessig's Tyranny
In The Infrastructure article
in WIRED is an assessment of PICS by one of the more
hardheaded US legal theorists, author of the outstanding Code
& Other Laws Of Cyberspace (New York, Basic Books
99).
next page (PURLS)
|
