PICS is a W3C specification for describing the content of resources with a metadata label. PICS was originally designed as a way for parents and teachers to gain control over the Web sites and pages that children could access on the Internet. The PICS standards facilitate the following:
* Self-rating Content providers voluntarily label the content they create and distribute.
* Third-party rating Independent labeling services associate labels with content created by others. These services may devise their own labeling, and multiple services
PICS is a cross-industry working group whose goal is to facilitate the development of technologies to give users of interactive media, such as the Internet, control over the kinds of material to which they and their children have access. PICS members believe that individuals, groups and businesses should have easy access to the widest possible range of content selection products, and a diversity of voluntary rating systems.
In order to advance its goals, PICS will devise a set of standards that facilitate the following:
Self-rating:
enable
The PICS specification enables labels (metadata) to be associated with Internet content. It was originally designed to help parents and teachers control what children access on the Internet, but it also facilitates other uses for labels, including code signing and privacy. The PICS platform is one on which other rating services and filtering software have been built.
The PICS system has two types of components: rating systems and rating labels. A rating system defines the criteria for how content is rated.
The rating label is the actual rating
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