Editorial Standards for Web Advertising
To Search Engines: Consider Children and Set Higher Standards

Preface

I wrote "Editorial Standards for Web Advertising" for several reasons. One was my concern about how these new technologies could effect children, especially abused and neglected children. Another was my initial anger at Lycos CEO Bob Davis' claim that this ad--one viewed by children in classrooms riveted to computer screens--was "no different" from similar ads "on supermarket shelves, on billboards and in numerous print campaigns."

Of course, neither is the Redbook "Sex Skill" ad the most malign of Web creations.

Still, precisely because it is not pornography, and is not a pedophile's solicitation to children, and is not directed at children at all--but is inappropriate and a mistake, as Redbook magazine later acknowledged--precisely because of this mix of qualities, this Redbook ad can help us to reason and debate more carefully and thoughtfully about the Internet, child protection, freedom of speech, and censorship.

In that spirit, then, "Editorial Standards for Web Advertising" is also my attempt to add a fresh perspective to the still-raging debate about the Internet, protection of children, free speech and censorship.

I am suggesting that we free ourselves from the limitations of the current debate, which tends to be highly polarized and narrowly focused on the opposition between free speech and censorship. With the issue framed solely in these terms, anyone who values freedom of speech must conclude that virtually the only way to protect children from inappropriate Internet content is parents' use of filtering technologies. Not surprisingly, this proposed "filtering solution" has become increasingly popular with people who want to protect freedom of speech and prevent Internet censorship.

Filtering technologies are extremely effective tools that can empower parents to protect their children--and they will only get better.

Yet there are (at least) two major problems with this constrained debate and with the emerging consensus that responsibility for protecting children lies almost exclusively with parents, who can use filtering technologies:

1. Advocates of the filtering solution have not acknowledged the importance of corporate responsibility. This includes responsibility for the nature of advertisements displayed on services (e.g. search engines) that children need to navigate the World Wide Web.

2. Advocates of the filtering solution have not addressed the predicament of abused and neglected children whose parents will never effectively use these technologies, nor the reality that these children are a sizable proportion of all children, whether rich or poor.

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