LOS ANGELES, CA — In an attempt to proactively address Senate concerns about the adult online community and its access by minors, The Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection (ASACP) has launched RTALabel.org, a free site dedicated to promoting the “Restricted To Adults” website label.Visitors to the site can cut and paste an RTA META tag into the header sections of each site page with content deemed inappropriate for minors and then add an RTA logo and link to their site. By doing this, adult webmasters will have another tool with which to empower parents who want to use available filtering technology in order to restrict their children from viewing mature content online.
Although the Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA) already provides webmasters with content labels, ASACP believes that the industry specific RTA label demonstrates “the online industry’s commitment to helping parents prevent children from viewing age-inappropriate content. “
Joan Irvine, executive director for ASACP admits that “Nobody knows how a government labeling system might work, or how it could affect your business,” but opines that “even if mandatory labeling doesn’t pass this time, they’re sure to keep tossing new rules against the wall until one sticks. But we can avoid this by demonstrating that the industry is capable of self-regulation.”
Irvine will speak more on this subject on Friday, November 10th at Webmaster Access East during a “State of the Industry” panel.
The RTA label was developed by ASACP during a collaborative process that included input from a variety of adult businesses and individuals, free speech attorneys, and technical consultants. The move came about, in part, as a response to a U.S. Senate hearing’s insistence in January that attorney Paul Cambria warn his clients that if they did not self-label soon, the government would mandate labels. Not long afterward, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ Child Pornography and Obscenity Prevention Amendments of 2006 included a requirement that adult webmasters place META tags in the headers of every page on their site or face up to give years behind bars.
Already endorsed by big names in the adult industry including Channel 1 Releasing, Cybersocket, Falcon Studios, Hot Movies, Klixxx, Top Bucks, XBiz, XFans, Company Number 4, Crave Media, Nasty Dollars, WRAAC, the Free Speech Coalition, and attorneys Lawrence G. Walters and Gregory Piccionelli, ASACP hopes that the RTA label will become an important part of the growth of a responsible adult internet.
Site owners who agree to clearly and effectively label their work as inappropriate for minors are encouraged to visit the RTALabel.org site to learn more about how they can keep minors from accessing their content.
