ASACP CEO Joan Irvine along with Wicked Pictures contract performer, writer and director Stormy Daniels, and Wicked Pictures vice president of special projects Joy King, told an audience at the National Press Club that the use of the RTA label is rapidly growing among adult websites.
"More than 30 million children regularly access the Internet, and one-third of them report viewing sexual material online that we, as parents and as the adult industry, do not want them to see," Irvine said. "ASACP has worked diligently with the adult industry, webmasters and parental filtering companies to make sure the RTA label is widely recognized and used, and we're proud that more than 4 million web pages now link to the label online."
The recent series of public service announcements produced by ASACP and featuring Daniels were shown to the audience as an example of how the industry enables and encourages parents to use filtering software to block access by children to adult websites.
"Making the PSA for the RTA label was not just something that I wanted to do, but something I felt was an obligation," Daniels said. "Being part of the adult entertainment industry comes with many responsibilities, and I hope that by taking an active role in protecting minors I will inspire others in my business to follow my lead."
ASACP developed the RTA website label as a free, easy to use, internationally recognized label that marks website content as being for adults only. The unique string of "meta data" that comprises the tag is easily placed in the computer code of a website and allows parental filtering software to block children from accessing the website.
"The majority of the parental control systems have added RTA including the Parental Control Bar which was developed by the Website Rating and Advisory Council (WRAAC) and is the most frequently downloaded software on CNET.com," Irvine said. "We have made tremendous progress over the past year and look forward to what we can do in the years to come."
The RTA label has been honored by the American Society of Association Executives, and it was placed by The Center for Association Leadership on the 2008 Association's Advance America Honor Roll. The label was also recently named the Overall Winner in the U.S. Association category of the association's Make a Better World competition.
On May 22, the U.S. Senate passed S. Res. 567, introduced by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and co-sponsored by 27 Senators, designating June as National Internet Safety Month, and recognizing the need for new measures that organizations, web designers and families can take to protect children from age inappropriate material.
The RTA label provides such a solution.
"We applaud Sen. Murkowski and her 27 co-sponsors for their commitment to the challenge of Internet safety and we look forward to working with them on new ways to protect America's children online," Irvine said.