Mobile broadband provider to introduce website classifications

The movies that people are able to watch are controlled through a series of classifications indicating the age group that they are suitable for, and one mobile broadband provider is now launching a similar system for websites.

For many years British movie-goers have been able to determine the age suitability of any movie coming on at cinemas through the classification or rating that is given to the film by the British Board of Film Classification. The classification identifies whether the movie is suitable for kids, whether there should be adults present, or whether the movie is for adults only based on the content of the film.

One mobile broadband provider has now announced that it is launching a similar ratings system for websites, and is liaising with the British Board of Film Classification to help launch this system. The ISP, which is Tibboh, is using internet filters such as Netsweep to determine which categories the different websites will fall into and to set up blocks for websites.

The mobile broadband provider has given sites such as Google, Twitter, and Facebook a rating of ’12′. However, news websites such as the BBC have been rated ‘U’ as they are considered suitable for all ages. Blogging websites, one the other hand, including WordPress and Blogger, are being given ratings of ’15′.

The provider has already managed to classify around three billion websites, and said that it was important to ensure that mobile broadband users were protected by ensuring that they were not accessing websites that were not suitable for them. One official from Tibboh said: “Search engines are great but at the ‘U’ and ‘P’ level we found so many results and sponsored links that were inappropriate.”

Source – Pc Advisor