The big names had a big announcement earlier this week.

"Is this the news? Huge conglomerates getting along is heartening and noteworthy, but hardly big news."

Yahoo, MSN, and AOL all announced they would adopt a voluntary ratings system in an effort to protect children from viewing objectionable content. The story made all the big news wires. The headlines brought big attention to the Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA: http://www.icra.org) because they are the system the big boys have chosen to use. Is this really big news?

The fact the big players have chosen a rating system that has been around since 1994 cannot be considered big news. That adoption of the ICRA system by the big boys will legitimize a seven-year-old standard is good for ICRA but it's not big news.

Where is the "news" in all of this? Is the "news" that mortal enemies actually agreed on something? None of the players have much fondness for each other. Is this the news? Huge conglomerates getting along is heartening and noteworthy, but hardly big news.

Is the news to be found in our never-ending efforts to protect "the kids" from Internet evils? Is the adoption of ICRA ratings by the big guys the decisive moment that finally puts a stop to all bad behaviors on the Internet? Is this the news in this story?

Who is ICRA? What benefits are there to listing your adult site with ICRA? Is a self-regulating standard better than a government mandate? Who is ICRA? The ICRA website states this:

"The Internet Content Rating Association is an international, independent organization that empowers the public, especially parents, to make informed decisions about electronic media by means of the open and objective labeling of content. ICRA's dual aims are to:

Protect children from potentially harmful material; and,

Protect free speech on the Internet.

There are two elements to the system:

Web authors fill in an online questionnaire describing the content of their site, simply in terms of what is and isn't present. ICRA then generates a Content Label (a short piece of computer code) which the author adds to his/her site.

Users, especially parents of young children, can then set their internet browser to allow or disallow access to web sites based on the objective information declared in the label and the subjective preferences of the user. The ICRA system can be used with Microsoft's Internet Explorer immediately, with wider applications under development. The existing RSACi labels can continue to be used in both Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator but will be phased out over time.

A key point is that the Internet Content Rating Association does not rate Internet content - the content providers do that, using the ICRA system. ICRA makes no value judgment about sites. ICRA is a non-profit making organization with offices in Brighton, UK and Washington DC, USA. Members include many of the Internet industry's leading names from around the world."

This means a website owner who registers their site with ICRA, is adding it to ICRA's database of pages. People who use Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator set up ICRA from within their browser preferences or options menu. These security settings "filter out" sites the user finds objectionable. If a user implements ICRA security settings, sites that are NOT registered with ICRA will be deemed "unsafe" by default.

Here is where the real news is: You need to register your adult site with ICRA.

Because the big boys AOL, Yahoo and MSN have jumped on the ICRA bandwagon, ICRA will undoubtedly become most-used by surfers that filter Internet content. As an adult site owner, your ICRA-registered site will appear in the filtering process as one that has adult content. A non-ICRA site will appear as not rated and not recommended.

The advantage for your ICRA-listed porn site is you have legally proved to the world that you do not want underage or illegal viewing of your page's contents. The second advantage is the adult surfer is informed by a trusted source that yours is a sex page and not some warez/hacker/pedophile/hate/scary page. The third benefit is an ICRA listing helps get you better indexed by search engines. The fourth and most important reason to list your site with ICRA is that it is SELF-REGULATING.

The big players may have been slow on the uptake, but ICRA has always been a good idea. If the Internet industry polices itself, it can delay governmental intervention indefinitely. The film industry has been around for almost a hundred years and because of self-imposed standards, has remained relatively free of governmental censorship. The porn industry fights censorship battles every day. Perhaps the adult Internet can avoid the vague standards of decency that exist in pending cases (like COPA) if they self-regulate.

With all the doom and gloom prophecies on the future of net porn being bandied about, this news about ICRA is a ray of hope. Let the credit card companies try to dick us. Let the moral majority curse us to hell. Let us stand together and prove to the world that the adult Internet industry does NOT want "the kids" on our sites.

The big boys joined our team. This is the true news.