1. PLATFORM FOR INTERNET CONTENT SELECTION.
Just as technology creates and compounds privacy conflicts, technology, also, offers new solutions for privacy policies. The Platform for Internet Content Selection ("PICS") is a good example of a technological solution designed to resolve the policy problem of accommodating different standards for content.
A consortium of computer-science scholars and industry representatives designed PICS to facilitate the selective blocking of access to information on the Internet and to provide an alternative to legal restrictions on the dissemination of content on the Internet. ( Joel R. Reidenberg, Lex Informatica: The Formulation Of Information Policy Rules Through Technology, 76 Tex. L. Rev. 553, 558 (February 1998).) PICS is a set of technical specifications that define a standard format for rating labels describing materials available on the Internet and a standard mechanism for distributing those labels. (Id.) The structure of PICS allows several different content-evaluation standards to be applied to the same information on a web site and different viewers to use different filter criteria. (Id.)
When regulations conflict among nations, network servers can use PICS technology as part of a firewall to filter content that is illegal in one nation but legal elsewhere in the world. Thus, PICS technology allows specific content regulation in one nation without forcing those regulations on all nations. Similarly, if a nation uses a potentially incompatible standard, such as the "local community standard" for pornography classifications, PICS technology even allows different filters within a single nation. This technological mechanism provides the individual the choice of which filter to use and, thereby, avoid over-restrictive filtering.
National legislatures are attempting to utilize technological solutions for the content problem over the Internet. In France, the passage of the new Telecommunications Reform Act requires ISP’s to offer technical means for users to filter content. In Germany, a law requires the application of a complicated rating system to determine what material is a threat to minors. Domestically, Congress passed the Communications Decency Act("CDA") which provided ISP’s a defense to Internet suits. Essentially, the CDA stated that an ISP would not be liable for inappropriate content reaching minors if the ISP made a good faith effort to implement any technological mechanism to restrict access to only adults.