The presentation, sponsored by Councilman John Duran, was given to ASACP CEO Joan Irvine and Cybersocket President Morgan Sommer, a member of the ASACP board.
"There's a tension that occurs between keeping the Internet free, open and accessible to members of the public, and at the same time protecting children from material parents believe may be harmful," Duran said. "ASACP has come up with a program for parents to use control filters so they can make the decisions in terms of what's to be seen in the home and what is not."
Accepting the presentation, Irvine told the crowd, estimated at 200 people, about the success of the RTA labeling system.
"Seven adult sites get a billion hits daily to pages that are labeled with RTA, and about 200,000 uniques to pages that are labeled with RTA, which is astronomical," Irvine told the city council. "If parents use traffic-control filtering systems, children are blocked from these pages. We get 40,000 unique vistors each month to our 'Links for Parents' page on RTALabel.org. That means 40,000 people are looking to be educated on what they can do." Founded in 1996, the Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection is a nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating child pornography from the Internet. ASACP also works to help parents prevent children from viewing age-inappropriate material online.
