Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA) was an international

non-profit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

with offices in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

and the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

. In October 2010, the ICRA rating system, and the organization, was discontinued. Its mission was to help users find the content they want, to trust what they find and to filter out what they do not want for themselves or for their children. ICRA also acted as a forum through which both political and technical infrastructure are defined to help shape the way that the

World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web ...

and

content distribution Digital distribution, also referred to as content delivery, online distribution, or electronic software distribution, among others, is the delivery or distribution of digital media content such as audio, video, e-books, video games, and other so ...

channels work.

Methods

ICRA created a content description system which allowed webmasters and digital content creators to self-label their content in categories such as

nudity Nudity is the state of being in which a human is without clothing. The loss of body hair was one of the physical characteristics that marked the biological evolution of modern humans from their hominin ancestors. Adaptations related to h ...

, sex,

language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...

(profanity etc.),

violence Violence is the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy. Other definitions are also used, such as the World Health Organization's definition of violence as "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened ...

, other potentially undesired material and online interactivity such as social networking and chat. There are context variables such as

art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

medicine Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pr ...

and

news News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different media: word of mouth, printing, postal systems, broadcasting, electronic communication, or through the testimony of observers and witnesses to event ...

—for example, a piece of content or site can be described as having depictions of nudes, but they are in an artistic context. A key point is that ICRA does not rate internet content, nor do it make value judgements about sites – the content providers self-label, and then parents and other concerned adults make a value judgement as to what is or is not appropriate content. The labelling was done using a web-based questionnaire. The content creators checked which of the elements in the questionnaire are present or absent from their Web sites, and a small file is automatically generated using the RDF format, which is then linked to the content on one or more domains. Formerly, the system was based on PICS. Users could then use content filtering software to censor various types of content. One such application, ICRAplus, was maintained by ICRA itself. ICRA also had a validator which tested all versions of ICRA and old RSACi labels. The content descriptions were revised in 2005 to enable easier application to a wide range of digital content, not just websites. The ICRA also intended to launch a service to verify the accuracy of ICRA labels and to provide this information to third-party tools and services, such as

search engines A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in ...

. Alternative labelling projects include Quatro, an EU-funded project which integrates content labels with quality and trust marks, and its successor, QuatroPlus.

Members

ICRA's corporate members included:

AOL AOL (stylized as Aol., formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. It is a brand marketed by the current incarnation of Yahoo! Inc. ...

British Telecom BT Group plc (trading as BT and formerly British Telecom) is a British multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered in London, England. It has operations in around 180 countries and is the largest provider of fixed-line, b ...

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...

T-Online t-online.de is a German news portal, owned and published by digital multi-channel media company Ströer. It reaches over 179 million visits per month coming from 29 million unique visitors. The editorial team is located in Berlin. History I ...

Verizon Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas ...

, Cable & Wireless,

Demon Internet Demon Internet was a British Internet service provider, initially an independent business, later operating as a brand of Vodafone. It was one of the UK's earliest ISPs, offering dial-up Internet access services from 1 June 1992. According to th ...

, IBM,

Bertelsmann Foundation The Bertelsmann Stiftung is an independent foundation under private law, based in Gütersloh, Germany. It was founded in 1977 by Reinhard Mohn as the result of social, corporate and fiscal considerations. As the Bertelsmann Stiftung itself ...

, Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), and

Software and Information Industry Association The Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) is a trade association dedicated to the entertainment, consumer and business software industries. Established in 1984 as the Software Publishers Association (SPA), the SIIA took its new n ...

. ICRA has been supported by the European Union's Internet Action Plan and various trusts and foundations.

Discontinuation

As of October 2010, the ICRA labeling engine has been discontinued by FOSI. Additionally, FOSI has withdrawn all support for the ICRA rating system and taken down all documentation for labeling websites with ICRA ratings. The reason is that the ICRA label failed to gain widespread acceptance.

References

External links

ICRA HomepageICRA Vocabulary
{{Video game content rating systems Media content ratings systems Semantic Web Content-control software Non-profit organizations based in Washington, D.C. 2010 disestablishments in Washington, D.C.

Methods

Members

Discontinuation

See also

References

External links