http://www.collegehill.com/ilp-news/reagle.html f r o n t p a g e | a b o u t | b a c k i s s u e s | s u b s c r i b e | a d v e r t i s e The ILPN discusses PICS with Joseph Reagle of the W3 Consortium August 18th 1997 Joseph Reagle Jr. joined the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in October of 1996 to focus on policy issues related to the development of global technologies and their relationship to social and legal structures. Specifically, how to promote "good" engineering when applied to a multifaceted and often contentious policy environment; one result of this activity is the W3C Statement on Policy. Mr. Reagle has also been working on filtering, digital signature, intellectual property rights management, and privacy capabilities on the Web. He has also been an active contributor to the development of the Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3) project at the W3C. P3 will enable computer users to be informed and to control the collection, use and disclosure of their personal information on the Web.ÿ ILPN: How does PICS work? The Platform for Internet Content Selection (PICS) is an infrastructure for associating labels (metadata) with Internet resources. It was originally designed to help parents and teachers control what children access on the Internet, but it also facilitates other uses for labels, including code signing, privacy, agents, and intellectual property rights management. PICS allows organizations to easily define content rating systems, and enable users to selectively block (or seek) information. The standard is not a rating system (like MPAA or RSACi), but an encoding method for the ratings of those systems. Those encoded ratings can then be distributed with documents, or through third party label bureaus. ILPN: Can you summarize the origin of PICS as well as the coalition behind [Related Links] its development? What role is W3C playing in the The World Wide Web ongoing development and Consortium PICS Site promotion of PICS? Family Friendly During 1995, a number of activities occurred that Internet...The White were related to concerns House Internet Content of children accessing Filtering Plan. potentially inappropriate Web content: Australian Anti-PICS Site 1. The Senate Judiciary Committee heard Ratings Now, testimony regarding the "Protection of Censorship Children From Tomorrow...from SALON Computer Pornography Act of 1995" (S. 892) ACLU Press Release 2. The Information on the July White Highway Parental House Summit Empowerment Group (IHPEG), a coalition Foucault in of three companies (Microsoft Cyberspace: Corporation, Netscape Surveillance, Communications, and Sovereignty and Progressive Hard-Wired Censors ... Networks), was formed an absolute must read to develop standards article from James for empowering Boyle, a law professor parents to screen at WashingtonÿCollege inappropriate network of Law, content. AmericanÿUniversity. 3. A number of standards for content labeling were proposed including Borenstein's and New's Internet Draft "KidCode" (June 1995), the Voluntary Internet Self Rating by Alex Stewart and NetRate by Peter Wayner. 4. A number of services and products for blocking inappropriate content were announced, including Cyber Patrol, CyberSitter, Internet Filter, NetNanny, SafeSurf, SurfWatch, and WebTrack. By August, the standards activity was consolidated under the auspices of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) when the W3C, IHPEG, and twenty other organizations agreed to merge their efforts and resources to develop a standard for content selection. The intent of the PICS project was to demonstrate that it was possible and better for individuals and families on the Internet to have control over the the information they receive, rather than creating a national framework for censorship. Today, the W3C believes PICS-based technology can fulfill the requirements of mediating access potentially offensive or illegal content. The next big step is educating the users on how to use those technologies. For the future, we are working on the Resource Description Framework as the basis for a richer metadata infrastructure. Applications such as our P3 privacy project will use it to enable sites to make privacy statements. ILPN: Can you describe the difference between 'labeling' 'filtering' and 'blocking,' and why this set of distinctions might be important? Paul Resnick's PICS Options FAQ has a very good answer to this question and some of the others that you ask. To summarize, labels are statements. They have the capability to describe a Web page, or to make any arbitrary assertion. Obviously, people can use such information to block, or select what they want to see. To generalize, one can use metadata to "rate" a Web page with respect to some rating system. Given ratings, a user applies a filter (her preferences about the ratings) to determine which pages are most appropriate; some action is associated with the result of the filtering. The common result is the blocking or selection of a page, but the user could also be presented with a list of sites sorted according to her preferences. ILPN: What do you make of the opposition by EFF, the American Library Association and the Electronic Privacy Information Center to PICS? Do you see PICS as a bulwark of free speech, or simply as the lesser of two evils (the other being government regulation)? I would characterize the response from each of those organizations differently, and of course my response is based on my own understanding of that position:ÿ 1. The ALA does not oppose PICS or filtering in general. I believe they acknowledge its usefulness as a means of parental empowerment, but do not feel it is appropriate for installation on every computer by default in their libraries. I respect this point of view while acknowledging that libraries may have requirements placed upon them by their constituencies or by the law with respect to illegal materials; it is up to the libraries, their constituencies, and governments to appropriately resolve these concerns. 2. I personally like the direction the EFF took in working on "Public Interest Principles for Online Filtration, Ratings and Labelling Systems" and hope to see such efforts continue. The W3C feels that metadata is necessary to the Web. Hence, I think it is somewhat naive to criticize the capability to support metadata. While I do not agree with every position in the EFF document, I liked it because I think it is more constructive to discuss how that metadata infrastructure can be best used (or how to prevent abuse) rather than trying to hobble the Web. 3. I, and my colleagues at the W3C, encourage rigorous discussion on the use of filtering technologies and how they affect individuals' rights. I do not buy the slippery slope argument that all technology which governments could use to do "bad things" must not be developed. I do not see PICS in grand terms; PICS is an application of metadata, as I explain elsewhere. To respond to the later question I do prefer the capability to exclude unwanted speech over the suppression of it at its source. Also, metadata itself is speech -- having the capability to laud, critique and criticize others is fundamental to a robust society. ILPN: How likely is it that PICS-based software will be mandated by governments at the level of ISPs? Unknown. Also, governments could theoretically do a number of things such as : * create rating systems * determine filtering criteria * require the use of filtering technology in servers or in clients * require the use of certain rating systems, etc. They can accomplish this by legislative action, by interpreting existing statutes, by promoting self-regulatory structures, or by providing incentives to comply with the policies by attaching liability, or removing it, to the players involved. Even with a specific question in hand, it would be a difficult task to predict the path of any nation. ILPN: Are you concerned with the potential abuse of PICS by governments and/or employers? Yes. I personally would protest or subvert my employer's or government's efforts in applying mandatory filters against my will; I do use filters to select content I am interested in and to get rid of spam and bozos. Regardless of my personal opinion, the W3C does not have the competency to tell other organizations what their policies should be. We can tell them about the technology and consequences of its use, but what they do with it is their choice obviously. ILPN: What about the possibility that a third-party labeling organization will obtain too much power? In terms of an independent third party? Let the market decide. If there are monopolistic concerns, a nation may wish to apply anti-trust laws. If it is a political entity, I hope it has some mechanism for being held accountable to its constituency. ILPN: We tend to think of PICS in terms of excluding materials deemed offensive. What are more 'positive' possible applications of PICS? PICS is merely one application of "metadata." Metadata means "data about data" and we are working very hard on this with our Resource Description Framework (RDF). This is a fundamental computer science concept and is essential to the future of the Web. Any time you wish to make a statement or an assertion, to rely upon a trusted opinion, it is "metadata." Our Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3) is another application of metadata. We wish to enable sites to make statements about their privacy practices so users are informed and can make choices about how they wish to interact with sites. A useful feature of metadata is that it is can be machine readable, so agents can act on behalf of the user, freeing the user to concentrate on higher order content and interactions. Hence, when I configure my agent, I should be able to search Web sites with the type of content I like, those which have privacy practices that I like, or that are referred to me by trusted third parties, and those that support the payment capabilities that I posses. ILPN: PICS seems to transform the web from an arena in which anything goes, and in which each individual must define his or her own participation, to an arena in which various 'cultures' can establish their own, separately designed comfort zones. Was this an intention of the PICS developers, or is it simply an unintended consequence of an effort to protect children? I donût know if this was an original, explicit intention of PICS, but it soon became apparent that this is what PICS was about: allowing people to create their own cultural boundaries on the Web. I look at a lot of what we do at the W3C as not only providing the basic infrastructure for exchanging hyperlinked documents, but we are providing the capability to have more sophisticated interactions with other users and agents on the Web -- homegrown cultures and societies. "Real world" entities may see these tools as ways of extending their own social structure onto the Web, and this is actually what a lot of the PICS debate is about in my opinion. We'll see how successful governments can be. In the meantime, the W3C does want to mitigate the possible fragmentation on the Web from either: 1) people dropping off it all together and creating their own, or 2) tearing it apart from fighting over whose cultural norms should prevail. I'll quote from the W3C Policy Statement on this point: ...This architecture must allow local policies to co-exist without cultural fragmentation or domination... http://www.w3.org/Policy/statement.html ILPN: Is W3C promoting the development of PICS into proxy server products? Yes. The PICS Options FAQ states that filter processing can be centralized at a proxy server while still permitting individuals to choose the filtering rules. I will qualify this by saying that it has never been the intent of the W3C to create technology for governments to use as a means of centralized control. Not that governments couldn't do such a thing (and there are other ways for them to do it if they wanted to), but that isn't our intent in working on this technology. ILPN:. What kind of legislation, and court cases, do you expect to see in the future regarding PICS? I expect to see continued activity in: 1. drawing the line between "illegal" and "inappropriate" content 2. determining what obligations services have in restricting illegal material 3. developing self regulatory structures for limiting childrens' access to "inappropriate" materialÿ (promoting a "family friendly internet.") ILPN: What should people maintaining web sites be doing regarding PICS and the various rating systems? Should people be rating their sites now? What might the consequences be for neglecting to rate one's site? Is it important for people to keep track of how their web sites are rated, and if so, how can they do this? Technologies, such as Microsystems Software's CyberLabeler, are being developed which follow the recommendations of the PICS specifications and make labeling sites much easier. Content creators that want to label should continue to demand such technologies and that such technologies be integrated into Web development applications. I expect that in the near future, many sites will be generated dynamically from databases; those databases will be indexed and structured by metadata. At which point, labels and rating will be integral to the creation of dynamic, customized sites. Search engines may also begin relying upon the useful information found in metadata to return more appropriate -- on "target" -- information to users. The consequence of not rating your site might be that if you have potentially illegal or offensive material you may draw regulatory attention upon yourself. Also, by not labeling you may be overlooked by those using filtering and content selection technologies. Most adult sites are more than happy to label and use filtering services, they want to attract those looking for the services they offerÿ while avoiding the difficulties associated with angry parents. ILPN:Thank you for your time. My pleasure. Send us your comments on this article Copyright 1997. All Rights Reserved f r o n t p a g e | a b o u t | b a c k i s s u e s | s u b s c r i b e | a d v e r t i s e