Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

There has been a lot of talk in legal circles since the creation of the Internet about how the Internet should be regulated, and if it should be regulated at all.  The most vocal section of the echo-chamber that is the Internet is dead set against any sort of regulation.  I imagine that British Minister of Culture Andy Burnham isn’t one of those people.

Burnham is hoping to negotiate with President-Elect Barack Obama’s administration to try and bring about some sort of “international rules” regarding English language websites.  One idea given is to give websites movie-esque ratings which would presumably have porn sites or sites with an immense amount of violence as the highest possible ratings.  Another possible idea is forcing ISPs to offer connections where only child-friendly websites would be available.  That could open up a lot of new and old issues regarding net neutrality in a way, as well as what’s deemed suitable for children.

While I can understand why Burnham would want to bring about such a set of rules, I doubt it will really catch.  At least the website ratings would be immensely difficult to monitor, and would add a lot of stress on content creators to make sure they don’t put up anything beyond their site’s rating.  I would also be surprised if anyone on Obama’s staff agrees enough with Burnham to push the rules through.  We’ll have to wait and see, but I suspect these proposed rules will be dead unless they can find a way around the way the Internet works, or get the backing of every major ISP and hosting service.

Read [Reuters]