KidCode and other "content-filtering" proposals

[Ted Hardie <[e-mail]>]

Is any working group currently considering the KidCode proposal?  The
document draft-borenstein-KidCode-00.ps lists it as the "Network
Working Group", but neither of the authors responded to email requests
for information about which working groups would be discussing it.  (I
am on the mailing lists for the http working group and several others
which might be salient, but I have seen nothing about it on any of
them).

I feel strongly that we need to address this problem before these
increasingly-unworkable proposals get out of hand.  The original
scheme for dealing with the varied nature of content on the web
involved limitations imposed through proxy caching sites, and gave us
value added resellers like SurfWatch, which provide editorial
services.  Though there are significant problems of scale, this
approach inconvenienced nobody and helped create a market for
web-based services.  As print and media hysteria over the issue have
gotten worse (see note below), the proposals have moved through:

1) Content labelling through additional html tags

2) Content labelling through new http header fields

3) Content labelling through additions to the URL

4) Setting up an "alternate DNS" for the Internet with only sites
suitable for kids.


The proposals have gotten harder to implement and more generally
inconvenient as time has gone on.  Each of them requires new browser
code, one also requires new server code, and the last actually would
require a new outlay of DNS servers.  Nor are the proposals very well
thought out; the Borenstein-New proposal, for example, suggests adding
a KidCode.Age.Why segment (i.e. KidCode.21.sexually-explicit or
KidCode.0) to *every* URL on the Web.  In addition to making the
Repetive Stress Injury folks see red through all the extra typing,
this proposal actually would make it *easier* to locate adult-oriented
material by building a searchable string into the URL.

Despite the problems inherent in many of these proposals, well-meaning
folks keep putting them forward.  I believe we need to deal with the
issue, soon.  If there is no working group currently looking at this,
I suggest that the responsible use of the network group take it up
(their current document on Netiquette should finish up in July),
either with the current group or with folks interested in the new
effort (I am willing to co-chair or chair the group, if the current
set of folks wish to step down, and I can arrange for mailing lists,
web sites, etc. if need be.).

My thanks for your attention,

			Regards,
				Ted Hardie




Note: For those outside the U.S., two recent cases of under-age users
of online services running away to be with people they met through
those services have caused a veritable media frenzy of "Pedophiles
on Net", despite those cases involving online "chat rooms" provided
by value-added services like America Online.