Committee to Help Revise International Filtering and Labeling System to Protect Children from Harmful Internet Content
Internet Content Rating Association Establishes Worldwide Advisory Board
Washington, D.C. and Brighton, England, April 4, 2000 — The Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA) today announced that it has appointed a new advisory board that will assist the organization in revising its international filtering and labeling system that allows adults to restrict children’s access to harmful Internet content. The board includes educators, policy experts and media professionals from eight different countries.
New advisory board members include:
- Francisco Martin Abreu, founder, EDUNET (Spain)
- Izumi Aizu, co-founder and principal of Asia Network Research (Japan/Mayalsia)
- Dr. Peng Hwa Ang, vice dean for the School of Communication Studies at Nanyang Technological University (Singapore)
- Jack Balkin, professor and founder/director of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School (United States)
- Jerry Berman, co-founder and executive director for the Center For Democracy & Technology (United States)
- Cornelius Crans, director of the Netherlands Board of Film Classification (Netherlands)
- Al MacKay, general manager for the Canadian Public Affairs Channel (Canada)
- Nana Makaula, CEO of the South African Film and Publication Board
- Dr. Dianne Martin, computer science program director for the Division of Undergraduate Education for the National Science Foundation and a professor at George Washington University (United States)
- Kenji Naemura, professor at the Graduate School of Media and Governance and faculty of Environmental Information, Keio University (Japan)
- Jean Armour Polly, author of The Internet Kids & Family Yellow Pages (United States)
- Bruce Rigby, acting assistant general manager of business systems and systems support for the Department of Education, Employment and Training in the State of Victoria (Australia)
- Nigel Williams, founder and director of Childnet International (United Kingdom)
“This is an exciting time for ICRA, as we move forward to create a truly international filtering and rating system that meets the individual culture and language needs of different countries,” said Stephen Balkam, executive director of ICRA. “Our new advisory board brings together distinguished people from many countries to assist us as we as we embark upon this task.”
Formed in May 1999, ICRA was created to develop an internationally acceptable online content labeling system. The new global labeling system will be based on the RSACi content rating system that is already embedded in Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator and has rated more than 130,000 Web sites. Formed with the backing of some of the world’s best known Internet and communications companies, ICRA’s founding members include, AOL, Bell Canada, Bertelsmann Foundation, British Telecom (BT), Cable & Wireless, Demon Internet (UK), Deutsche Telekom Online Service, Electronic Network Consortium, EuroISPA, IBM, Internet Watch Foundation, Microsoft, Novell, Software & Information Industry Association, and UUNet.
For further information on the members of the Advisory Board, please click here.
About ICRA
ICRA is an international non-profit organization, incorporated in the UK as a company limited by guarantee, with charitable purposes. ICRA’s mission is to develop, implement and manage an internationally acceptable voluntary self-rating system which provides Internet users world wide with the choice to limit access to content they consider harmful, especially to children. ICRA has received the RSAC assets including the RSACi system that provides consumers with information about the level of nudity, sex, language, and violence in Web sites. To date, more than 130,000 Web sites have rated with the RSACi system, including a great number of the top 100 sites which account for 80% of the web’s traffic. For more information on ICRA and the advisory board, visit www.icra.org.
Contact: Jennifer Riggle Porter Novelli Convergence Group — ICRA +1 757-451-3665