| Sumario: | The writer discusses censorship on the Internet. Most of the methods of blocking data to date can be placed in one of three categories: software that consults a list of known sites and blocks them according to criteria selected by the PC owner; software that searches for suspect words to decide when to block sites; and the fencing off of sections of the Internet by companies that provide Internet access. Another system that might operate more effectively is self-rating. A consortium of Internet and computer firms released the specifications for such a scheme at a meeting held in Paris, France, early in May 1996. The scheme, the Platform for Internet Content Selection, would permit Internet content providers to label their offerings, and software running either on a user's PC or on the computers of the Internet provider would screen data according to criteria set by a parent, employer, or government. The advantage of this system is that it does not restrict what people write on the Internet, only what they read.
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