U.K. To Work With Obama On Web Ratings
The system used for rating movies could be applied to Web sites in an attempt to better police the Internet and protect children from harmful and offensive material, Britain's minister for culture told The Daily Telegraph newspaper. In an interview published Saturday, Andy Burnham said he is prepared to negotiate with President-elect Barack Obama's administration to draw up new international rules for English language sites. Such a proposal would likely enrage online free speech and First Amendment defenders. Previous attempts by Congress and Internet governance groups to cordon off areas of the Web deemed undesirable for kids faced controversy and were ultimately unsuccessful.
"The more we seek international solutions to this stuff -- the UK and the U.S. working together -- the more that an international norm will set an industry norm," the newspaper reports Burnham saying. Internet service providers could also be forced to offer services where the only sites accessible are those deemed suitable for children, the paper stated. "If you look back at the people who created the Internet they talked very deliberately about creating a space that governments couldn't reach," Burnham told The Telegraph. "I think we are having to revisit that stuff seriously now." Obama has defended Internet openness and has argued in favor of "network neutrality" but it remains to be seen how he will approach Web regulation on other fronts.
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