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This introduces the Internet Content Rating Association and its technologies for preventing access to objectionable content.
About ICRA
Many are concerned with objectionable content on the Internet. ICRA, the Internet Content Rating Association, now part of the Family Online Safety Institute, has long supported technologies to help people block content which they consider objectionable. Websites can specify the kinds of content the sites contain, e.g. possibly objectionable language, nudity, sex, and violence. Users can, in principle, specify what kinds of content they want blocked when they surf the web, however, browser support of these technologies is poor: the poor browser support has reduced the importance and relevance of content rating.
ICRA originally supported the W3C PICS standard. In 2005 ICRA switched to a new RDF-based technology which is more flexible and capable, dropping support of PICS. Some time later (2006?) ICRA decided to support both RDF and PICS.
Rating a Site
ICRA offers a self-rating system: you fill out a form, the Label Generator, answering questions about the content of a website; the form emits a file and two meta tags to be added to the site.
Before filling out the form, you should become familiar with ICRA’s tools for webmasters.
PICS Rating
The ICRA label generator emits one meta tag which encodes the basic answers to the questions asked by the Label Generator. This meta tag lacks fine details which are supported only by the newer RDF-based technology. You must insert the PICS meta tag into the header of each of your web pages.
For example, the meta tag for the Browser News is:
<meta http-equiv="PICS-Label" content='(PICS-1.1 "http://www.icra.org/ratingsv02.html" l gen true for "http://www.upsdell.com/" r (cz 1 lz 1 nz 1 oz 1 vz 1) "http://www.rsac.org/ratingsv01.html" l gen true for "http://www.upsdell.com/" r (n 0 s 0 v 0 l 0))' />
RDF Rating
The ICRA label generator also emits an RDF file which encodes the answers to these questions, as well as a second meta tag which points to the RDF file; you must copy the RDF file to the top of your site, and insert the RDF meta tag into the header of each of your web pages.
For example, the meta tag for the Browser News is:
<link rel="meta" href="http://upsdell.com/labels.rdf" type="application/rdf+xml" title="ICRA labels" />
And the RDF file, labels.rdf, is:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<rdf:RDF
xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#"
xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
xmlns:dcterms="http://purl.org/dc/terms/"
xmlns:label="http://www.w3.org/2004/12/q/contentlabel#"
xmlns:icra="http://www.icra.org/rdfs/vocabularyv03#">
<rdf:Description rdf:about="">
<dc:creator rdf:resource="http://www.icra.org" />
<dcterms:issued>2005-7-12</dcterms:issued>
<label:authorityFor>http://www.icra.org/rdfs/vocabularyv03#</label:authorityFor>
</rdf:Description>
<label:Ruleset>
<label:hasHostRestrictions>
<label:Hosts>
<label:hostRestriction>upsdell.com</label:hostRestriction>
</label:Hosts>
</label:hasHostRestrictions>
<label:hasDefaultLabel rdf:resource="#label_1" />
<label:rules rdf:parseType="Collection">
<rdf:Description>
<label:hasURI>^http://www\.upsdell\.com/StEdwardTheConfessor/</label:hasURI>
<label:hasLabel rdf:resource="#label_2"/>
</rdf:Description>
</label:rules>
</label:Ruleset>
<label:ContentLabel rdf:ID="label_1">
<rdfs:comment>Label for most of website</rdfs:comment>
<icra:nz>1</icra:nz>
<icra:sz>1</icra:sz>
<icra:vz>1</icra:vz>
<icra:lz>1</icra:lz>
<icra:oz>1</icra:oz>
<icra:cz>1</icra:cz>
<rdfs:label>No nudity, No sexual material, No violence, No potentially offensive language, No potentially harmful activities, No user-generated content</rdfs:label>
</label:ContentLabel>
<label:ContentLabel rdf:ID="label_2">
<rdfs:comment>Label for St. Edward the Confessor</rdfs:comment>
<icra:nz>1</icra:nz>
<icra:sz>1</icra:sz>
<icra:vz>1</icra:vz>
<icra:lz>1</icra:lz>
<icra:oz>1</icra:oz>
<icra:cb>1</icra:cb>
<rdfs:label>No nudity, No sexual material, No violence, No potentially offensive language, No potentially harmful activities, User-generated content such as chat rooms and message boards (unmoderated)</rdfs:label>
</label:ContentLabel>
</rdf:RDF>
ICRA Button
After rating your site you may add an ICRA logo or button, including this one, which I have optimized for minimum load time and improved appearance:
