White House Seeks Internet Ratings

The White House is working closely with key technology companies to develop an Internet rating system that would help parents and schools screen the information children can call up on their computers, according to administration and industry officials.

The unusual collaboration was prompted by last week’s Supreme Court decision striking down a federal law that prohibited dissemination of indecent material over the Internet, and builds on previous industry efforts to provide content screening.

Participants in the private consultations say White House officials are now convinced it is technologically possible to give parents the tools they need to protect children from information they deem unsuitable.

“At this stage, it looks like a rating system is the most feasible way,” said a White House official who is helping to coordinate the effort to draw on industry expertise to address the problem.

If the effort is successful, the originators of Internet Web pages would be asked to self-rate their content based on widely recognized standards. Software would enable parents to block access to sites, based on their ratings.

Later this month, the White House will host a conference of Internet businesses, educators and parents groups to press for a solution “so that parents can be comfortable with their children using the Internet.”

The White House hopes to galvanize support within the private sector and the public at large for one or more recognized standards for rating the vast quantity of information available on the Internet’s World Wide Web. Doing so might entail rallying support for an existing rating system, or creating a new one from scratch, White House officials said.

So far, only a tiny percentage of Web sites is rated and there is no universally accepted rating scheme. As a result, it is very difficult for parents to enable their children to have access to a full range of potentially valuable information while screening out objectionable material.

In addition to pressing for adoption of generic, content-based standards to be used by Web page originators, the White House intends to encourage third parties, such as the PTA or religious groups, to develop their own standards so parents will have alternative filtering tools.

The independent ratings would help deter Web site proprietors from posting misleading ratings. But industry officials say in most cases, even the providers of adult material have an incentive to help parents block objectionable text and graphics.

“There are just a handful of bad actors who want to get porn to kids,” said Wade Randlett, who is helping to organize Silicon Valley companies to work with the White House on this and other issues of mutual concern. “The commercial porn people don’t need the kiddie porn problem. They want the credit card conversations.”

President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore are convinced the White House should get involved because no coordinated industrywide effort has emerged to help parents navigate the rough-and-tumble Internet.

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The White House initiative seeks to significantly expand and standardize initial efforts within the industry to help computer users screen the content of Internet sites.

Some “browser” programs used to navigate the Internet’s World Wide Web already have the ability to check Web sites for content ratings and to block access based on preferences specified by the user. They do so by using a technology known as Platform for Internet Content Selection, or PICS. A group of Internet pioneers decided to create PICS in response to growing interest by Congress and the Clinton administration in restricting the Internet sites over the last two years.

So far, however, there is no universally accepted rating system. One initial system, developed by the Recreational Software Advisory Council, rates Web pages on a 0 to 4 scale in each of four categories: nudity, sexual content, graphic language and violence. Another system developed by a parents group called SafeSurf provides even more-detailed ratings. Both organizations encourage Web page originators to rate themselves based on specified criteria and to submit their ratings for use with screening software.

A parent using a PICS-equipped Web browser, for example, can instruct the program to evaluate site content based on the SafeSurf rating system. The program can block access to any site that is unrated or carries a rating that the user has defined as unacceptable. A password function can be used to provide different levels of access to different family members.

But PICS is in an embryonic stage of development. Many parents do not know it exists. Many are using Web browsers that are not PICS-compatible. The process of setting screening parameters is relatively complex. The lack of a universal rating system makes the process even more complicated.

In addition, Web page originators are not required to attach a rating to their sites. SafeSurf says it has more than 50,000 ratings in its database, but that number represents only a tiny fraction of the millions of Web pages available to Internet users.

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Two critical elements must be in place before Internet content screening can really take off, experts say: One is a standardized, widely accepted rating system. The other is a critical mass of informed parents who are willing and able to use it.

The White House hopes to use the power of the bully pulpit to help provide both.

Although the drive to provide parents with a new television rating system has proved politically difficult, the effort to give parents similar power over the Internet could be more widely embraced, some observers say.

Although the president had to twist the arms of entertainment industry officials to get Hollywood engaged in a TV rating system, Silicon Valley executives have been more willing to engage voluntarily.

“In distinction from V-chip, this is an industry that wants to make this technology work, unlike the broadcasters,” said Andrew Schwartzman, president of Media Access Project, a public interest law firm.

Another reason for the eagerness of Internet innovators to help develop a screening system is the fear generated last year when Congress passed the Communications Decency Act, which would have made it illegal to send indecent material over the Internet.

Although the Supreme Court overturned that law last week on free-speech grounds, the law clearly rattled the Internet community. Many industry players appear eager to self-regulate so the government does not do it for them.

Some civil liberties groups argue that the administration should not advocate the adoption of a single standard for rating information on the Internet.

Times staff writer Warren Vieth contributed to this story.