Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA)
We at Adept Telco Ltd realise the importance of protecting minors from unsuitable content. That's why we label every file we serve (including images) with an ICRA label. As firm believers in the ICRA's 'Choice not censorship' belief, we try to promote ICRA labelling through greater awareness and clear labeling of all our own sites.
The Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA) is an international, non-profit organization of internet leaders working to make the internet safer for children, while respecting the rights of content providers. ICRA has long believed the best approach to protecting children online is through "user empowerment" - giving families the tools to control their online experience. When used voluntarily, tools like ICRA's empower families to match their online experience with their values, without compromising free expression or undermining other users' access to information.
The centrepiece of the organization is the descriptive vocabulary, often referred to as "the ICRA questionnaire." Content providers check which of the 45 elements in the questionnaire are present or absent from their websites. This then generates a short piece of computer code known as an ICRA label that the webmaster then adds to his/her site.
Users, especially parents of young children, can then use filtering software to allow or disallow access to web sites based on the information declared in the label. A key point is that the Internet Content Rating Association does not rate internet content - the content providers do that, using the ICRA labelling system. ICRA makes no value judgement about sites.
The descriptive vocabulary was drawn up by an international panel and designed to be as neutral and objective as possible. Most of the items in the questionnaire allow the content provider to declare simply that a particular element, such as gambling or chat facilities, is present or absent. The subjective decision about whether to allow access to that content is then made by the parent.
