Letter: Fight fairly on Internet porn

Sir: It is axiomatic that those who publish material on the World Wide Web or in Usenet newsgroups should not be treated more or less harshly by the law than those who use more traditional means.

Much of the SafetyNet proposal ("Industry moves to limit porn on the Internet", 23 September) is obviously intended in this vein. An essential part of the proposal (which is also referred to as R3, for "Rating, Reporting and Responsibility"), is that Internet service providers should require their users to rate their web pages so that those who use the PICS scheme can avoid the most offensive material.

PICS is a self-rating scheme, but in most implementations of it a failure to rate a page causes that page to be treated as most offensive - making it invisible even to those who have set their tolerance threshold at a fairly high level. This is the way it should work, otherwise the innocent might be exposed inadvertently to unrated and unlawful material

The reliance on PICS, rather than a more centralised scheme with clearly announced standards, will inevitably impose huge costs globally on those who are innocent of publishing illegal material, especially when each separate web page must be rated in order to surmount the PICS hurdle. Those who are publishing illegal material and who do not rate their pages will not be inconvenienced, since their pages will be concealed from those who would not wish to see them, whether rated or not.

Unlike traditional forms of publication, then, the burden of responsibility is placed on those who abide by the law rather than those who flout it.

MARK GOULD.

Department of Law

University of Bristol