Internet Content Rating Association

In December ICRA launched the first self-labelling system designed to allow different cultural values to be applied to internet filtering. From today this system is available in German, Spanish and French as well as English. ICRA (Internet Content Rating Association), is an independent, non-profit organization with offices in Europe and North America. Its aim is to protect children from harmful material on the Internet, while protecting content providers’ freedom of expression.

The new content labelling system, which can be found at www.icra.org, has been developed by ICRA in consultation with international experts in content classification as well as industry leaders. The new labelling questionnaire allows content providers to objectively label their sites’ content. “The multilingual site is extremely important to ICRA,” says Ola-Kristian Hoff, European Director of ICRA. “The system is carefully designed to respond to different cultural needs – and there is probably no other region where cultural and linguistic diversity is as important as in Europe”.

The second part of the system, a filter that allows parents to choose which of the labelled sites their children can view, will be launched in mid 2001.

To label your site go to www.icra.org and complete the labelling questionnaire.

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Notes for editors:

ICRA:
The Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA) is an independent non-profit organization with offices in Europe (UK) and the USA. ICRA’s mission is to protect children from potentially harmful material on the Internet, whilst protecting the content providers’ freedom of expression.

ICRA works in partnership with content providers toward the responsible development and growth of the Internet and is supported by AOL, Bell Canada, The Bertelsmann Foundation, BT, Cable & Wireless, Digimarc, Electronic Network Consortium (Japan), EuroISPA, IBM, Internet Watch Foundation, Microsoft Corp, Network Solutions Inc, Novell, ONdigital, PAGi (Singapore), Software and Information Industry Association, T-Online, Thus, .Kids Domain and UUNet.

ICRA is currently developing a new global system which will provide content providers with a tool to label their content objectively and parents with a device to filter content according to what they feel is appropriate for their children to view. The revised ICRA system will be launched in two parts – the labeling system for content providers is now available and the filtering systems for parents will be available in 2001.

As well as the ICRA labelling system, the organisation owns and operates the RSACi (Recreational Software Advisory Council on the Internet) rating and filtering system, which is integrated into Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Netscape’s Navigator. The RSACi system provides customers with information about the level of sex, nudity, violence, and offensive language in websites.