At Cozy Frog, we’ve written several articles and lessons on the porn Warning page. We’ve shown you how to create one and how to use one for promotional purposes. As well we’ve explained the reasons why your site should include one. Over the years, members of our industry have debated whether or not the Warning page serves any real purpose. After all, the Warning page can’t physically keep a minor out. At best, a Warning page is a symbol of good faith, showing the intention of the webmaster to prevent illegal viewing of adult content. The validity of the Warning page has yet to be tested in a court of law. There are plenty of arguments both for and against Warning pages on porn sites.

This is not an article about Warning pages. This is an article warning you about your pages. This is an article about self-labeling.

"Since 1999 the adult net has had available a substantial, applicable tool to block minors. For almost a decade, the Internet Content Ratings Association has given website operators the ability to self-label the content on their pages. "

The real world is catching up to cyberspace. In the real world, sexually oriented businesses pay out fees, taxes and licenses that non- sexually-oriented businesses do not. Thousands of you have created successful small companies from miniscule investments. With $100’s, you’ve done what takes hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars to do in the physical world. Some of you barely make back what little you spend. Others make back times ten. A few make way more. At some point, the collective governments of our planet will find a way to regulate adult web traffic and the people that make a profit from it. They’ve done it with every other entertainment medium that ever existed. There’s no reason to give you unrealistic expectations of the future. The moment will come when we Internet pornographers will be forced to pull back, reign in the free hardcore and give the public access limits more substantial than a Warning page.

Here’s the cool part. We’re on it.

Since 1999 the adult net has had available a substantial, applicable tool to block minors. For almost a decade, the Internet Content Ratings Association has given website operators the ability to self- label the content on their pages. This free tool first requires that you rate the imagery, text and outbound links on your site. If your site is XXX, you rate it appropriately. When you have finished rating, you may then submit your site to the ICRA.org database.

In turn, ICRA offers free-downloadable filtering software to parents. The parent/guardian configures the ICRA filter to block your XXX site and presto change-o; the wee ones never see your dirty filthy porn page. Even better, you add an ICRA code that you tuck inside the HEAD tag of your HTML page, as well as an .rdf file you upload to your FTP server. Double protection for the kiddies, less stress for Mom. Anchor it all to an ICRA graphic button and you’re telling the world that you’re aren’t some perverted, greedy sleaze. You want the parents and caretakers to decide how their children surf the worldwide web. With your ICRA button, link and HEAD tag and .rdf file, you are participating in a communal standards body that those MIT professors dreamed of in their early Cyber Utopian fantasies. Your measly little smut site will join domains like Yahoo, Microsoft and Sun in a human- edited, absolutely effective stopgap between access and maturity.

You bloggers out there. Don’t think I forgot you. You’re exactly who I’m talking to. You’ve got a dilemma. I understand. Other blogs don’t have Warning pages. There’s some magic Google mojo going on with all the text on a blog. A Warning page might screw it all up. I get it. My blog doesn’t have a Warning page either. Granted, mine doesn’t feature porn pics. However I do fly adult sponsor banners. I curse on my blog and post NSFW pics. I don’t have a Warning page. I have an ICRA button. My blog is in the ICRA database. That way, anyone using the ICRA filter can block access to my site if they choose. If this were the movies, I’d give my blog an ‘R’ rating. Instead, this is the Interwebs. So I give it an ICRA button.

Wait! Good news! Now the adult web has a content ratings system of our very own! The Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection (ASACP) just opened the "Restricted to Adults" website label at RTALabel.org.

Implementation for this label is easier than the ICRA questionnaire/email process. The RTA label is also a HEAD tag but there’s only one rating: RTA. Then again, filtering software comes bundled with most Internet Service Provider accounts and those filters often read/block sites according to META tags. RTA also plans to court search engines and ISPs with the business advantages of the “Restricted to Adults” label. RTA says that their label is not a replacement for the ICRA label. In fact, RTA claims your site can have both.

As I wrote, this is not an article about Warning Labels. This is an article warning you about your adult pages. This is an article for those sites that aren’t necessarily porn but are adult in nature. This is an article asking you to make a little extra effort to keep minors away from your adult images.