From: "Robin Whittle" <firstpr@ozemail.com.au>
Date: Sat, 7 Dec 1996 09:22:44 -0800 (PST)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: PICS is not censorship
Message-ID: <199612071722.EAA26996@oznet02.ozemail.com.au>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


I do not believe that PICS is a form of censorship, except for those 
people - children and employees - whose computing environment is 
beyone their direct control and who have to live with a browser that 
filters based on PICS labels.

For much, much more on the Internet content regulation debate, see my 
WWW site.

PICS is basically an excellent idea in my view.  It provides a means 
of child protection which is not censorship of the net or censorship 
of sources of information.  It is also useful for other things.  

However I don't beleive it is practical or desirable to insist that
all people use PICS and a particular value system to label their WWW
material - there is likely to be no suitable value system which is
adequate in all situations.

- Robin


> From:          stewarts@ix.netcom.com
> Date:          Wed, 04 Dec 1996 22:23:04 -0800
> To:            cypherpunks@toad.com
> Subject:       W3C Picks PICS for Censorship

> >> W3C ISSUES PICS AS A RECOMMENDATION; PICS READY FOR WIDESPREAD
>    ADOPTION; ENABLING USERS TO FILTER INTERNET CONTENT WITHOUT
>    CENSORSHIP - The World Wide Web Consortium today endorsed the
>    Platform for Internet Content Selection specifications as a W3C
>    Recommendation. This Recommendation represents the W3C's highest
>    "Stamp of Approval." It signifies that PICS specifications are stable
>    ... [Business Wire, 854 words]
> 
> #			Thanks;  Bill
> # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts@ix.netcom.com
> # You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk
> #     (If this is posted to cypherpunks, I'm currently lurking from fcpunx,
> #     so please Cc: me on replies.  Thanks.)


. Robin Whittle                                               .
. http://www.ozemail.com.au/~firstpr   firstpr@ozemail.com.au .
. 11 Miller St. Heidelberg Heights 3081 Melbourne Australia   .
. Ph +61-3-9459-2889    Fax +61-3-9458-1736                   .
. Consumer advocacy in telecommunications, especially privacy .
.                                                             .
. First Principles      - Research and expression - music,    .
.                         music industry, telecommunications  .
.                         human factors in technology adoption.
.                                                             .
. Real World Interfaces - Hardware and software, especially   .
.                         for music                           .