HTTP Futures

David Koblas (koblas@point.HomePages.com)
Wed, 30 Nov 1994 05:07:18 +0100

Just to raise an issue/thought. We spend a lot of time worring about
"access control" as it relates to Visa (payment) and content
sensitivity (do you have to be authorized to see this).

We are neglecting on form of access control that I think might be
just as important "parental control". Something similar to what
is seen on records, videos and games. How many "families" are
going to want to let their "young and easily influenced" children
loose on the web?

If the client<->server interaciton provides the ability for preferential
content hiding, it will make things much more acceptable to a wider
audiance.

Maybe something like:
<CLIENT>
Content-Guidance: {*,violence,sex,...}={specifer}
<SERVER>
Content-Guidance: sex=MPAA-R (i.e no male nudity, only simulated sex)

Trivially there are probably three guidlines that people would want
to self-censor information on sex, violence, and religon. I can't quite
see censoring Dow Jones reports about Sun Microsystems as something
many people would like to do....would they?

This might allow a 10 year old to visit www.playboy.com but not see
anything that they "shouldn't" see, and the rest of us not
inconvenienced by more passwords and access methods.

Food for though,
--koblas@homepages.com