Movie-style age ratings could be heading to websites, although how this will actually work in practice isn't clear.

Bit it is certainly on the UK government's agenda, with Culture Secretary Andy Burnham claiming it was looking at a number of possible safeguards to guarantee 'child-friendly web access' - without giving any real detail or indeed, stating if this is going to be pushed through in the near future. And if you're a US reader laughing at this, you might like to know that the UK plans to negotiate with the US in order to create some international rules for all English language websites.

Blocking free speech? Not according to Mr Burnham: "It's not about banning or stopping people having that freedom of expression...it's simply about clearer signposting, more information, so people know where they're working." However. he did also mention that the government is also looking at "cheap low-cost legal recourse" for online defamation cases, which just might make a lot of website owners and bloggers think twice before typing.

His views are broadly supported by child protection charities, but are likely to receive a more guarded response from ISPs and hosting companies, which could well be asked to behave as policemen for any new ratings system. We expect this to run and run in 2009.

t3.com

Quote:And if you're a US reader laughing at this, you might like to know that the UK plans to negotiate with the US in order to create some international rules for all English language websites.

And with Oz too, there trying to make an international ratings system, I will try to find the news article that I was reading about this

British MP Andy Burnham plans to work with Obama administration to establish international rules for websites









THE ratings used for films could be applied to websites in a bid to better police the internet and protect children from harmful and offensive material, Britain's minister for culture has said.

Andy Burnham told Britain's The Daily Telegraph newspaper the government was planning to negotiate with the administration of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama to draw up new international rules for English language websites.

"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 the Culture Secretary as saying.

Giving websites film-style ratings would be one possibilty.

"This is an area that is really now coming into full focus," Mr Burnham said.

Internet service providers could also be forced to offer services where the only sites accessible are those deemed suitable for children, the paper said.

Any moves to censor the internet would go to the heart of a debate about freedom of speech on the World Wide Web.

"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 Daily Telegraph. "I think we are having to revisit that stuff seriously now."

He said some content should not be available to be viewed.

"This is not a campaign against free speech, far from it; it is simply there is a wider public interest at stake when it involves harm to other people. We have got to get better at defining where the public interest lies and being clear about it."

Mr Burnham, who has three young children, pointed to the example of a 9pm television "watershed" in Britain before which certain material, like violence, cannot be broadcast, and said better controls were needed for the internet.

The minister wants new industry-wide "take down times" so that websites like YouTube or Facebook would have to remove offensive or harmful content within a specified time once it is brought to their attention.

He also said Britain was considering changing libel laws to give people access to legal help if they are defamed online.

News.com.au