At the summer meeting of the IETF, a BOF was held to discuss the role
of the IETF in the creation of a voluntary access protocol (ratings
protocol) for the Internet. The consensus of the group was that the IETF is
an appropriate place to work on the creation of such a protocol.
The preliminary consensus of the group (as I understand it), was that
it would be best to create a protocol separate from any of the current
application protocols (like http), but specific to the task of providing
third-party ratings on internet resources (in other words, not to tackle
the more general question of creating a meta-data service). The group
was also quite clearly opposed to the IETF being involved in determining
what the ratings should be. Its interest was in providing a method by
which a client could communicate with a ratings service. The group also
seemed to feel that by providing a generalized method of communication
for this exchange, it could enable a wider variety of ratings providers
to participate in the process of providing information on Internet resources
(and thus avoid, for example, linking ratings to a particular browser or
Internet service provider).
The mailing list [email protected] has been set up for those
interested in completing the charter for this working group. After a
working group charter has been hammered out and a chair named, these
will be sent up to the IESG for the formal blessing of the working
group; work on the protocol can proceed, of course, during this
blessing period, provided there is rough consensus on the goals of the
working group.
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Regards,
Ted Hardie
NAIC