Restricting Objectionable Content

In addition to the basic ways you can tailor your Web-browsing experience, Internet Explorer includes settings that protect your privacy and offer peace of mind regarding the types of content that can be viewed on your computer. The Content Advisor feature controls the types of content that Internet Explorer may display by monitoring Web sites in accordance with the Internet Content Rating Association, an independent organization that catalogs Web sites within rating categories that cover:

• Content that creates feelings of fear or intimidation, sets a bad example for young children, or encourages children to perform or imitate dangerous or harmful behavior

• Depictions of gambling or of the use of weapons, alcohol, tobacco, or other drugs

• Depictions of discrimination or encouragement to engage in discriminatory behavior

• Offensive language including profanity, expletives, terms for bodily functions, anatomical references, obscene gestures, explicit sexual references, and otherwise vulgar, discriminatory, or crude language

• Partial, frontal, or full nudity, revealing attire, and provocative displays

• Mild or explicit sexual activity, passionate kissing, and clothed or non-explicit sexual touching

• Violence, including aggressive, natural, or accidental violence; fighting in which creatures are injured or killed or damage is inflicted on realistic objects; injuring or killing of humans or non-threatening creatures; injuring or killing of humans with blood and gore; or wanton and gratuitous violence

• User-generated content, such as chat rooms, that is not controlled by a site owner and might or might not be moderated

You can add other rating systems such as SafeSurf (www.safesurf.com) to Content Advisor, to increase your level of control. Web site authors and owners who are aware of Internet rating systems voluntarily submit their sites for rating. You can allow only sites with a certain rating, and you can block the display of unrated sites (although this might result in a lot of sites being blocked because their owners don't know about the program).

For each of the content categories, you can specify the level of that type of content Internet Explorer may display: None, Limited, Some, or Unrestricted.

In this exercise, you will configure the Content Advisor settings, and then see Content Advisor in action. There are no practice files for this exercise.

1.	On the Internet Explorer Tools menu, click Internet Options, and then in the Internet Options dialog box, click the Content tab.
2.	In the Content Advisor area, click Enable.
3.	In the User Account Control dialog box, if you're logged on as an administrator, click Continue. Otherwise, enter an administrator password, and then click OK. Troubleshooting Repeat Step 3 each time the User Account Control message box appears while completing the remaining steps of this exercise. The Content Advisor dialog box opens, displaying the Ratings tab.
4.	In the Select a category list, click each category in turn and move the slider located below the category list to display descriptions of each restriction level. Some categories have three levels of restriction and others have four.
5.	Set the restriction level for each category as you want it, and then click the Approved Sites tab. You can allow or deny the display of specific sites regardless of their content, by entering the site URL in the Allow This Website box and then clicking the Always button or the Never button. Troubleshooting Don't be misled by the names of the tab and text boxyou can block sites as well as allow them by entering their information here.
6.	Add any sites you want to this list, and then click the General tab. If you activate Content Advisor without selecting the Users Can See Websites That Have No Rating check box, Internet Explorer blocks the display of any site that hasn't been submitted for rating by ICRA or another rating organization you specify, or whose site administrator hasn't added the rating code to the Web site's pages.
7.	For the purposes of this exercise, leave the Users can see websites that have no rating check box cleared, and the Supervisor can type a password check box selected. Then in the Supervisor password area, click Create password. If you don't proactively create a password, Content Advisor prompts you to do so the first time you activate it.
8.	In the Create Supervisor Password dialog box, type P@ssw0rd in the Password and Confirm password boxes, and click OK. Then click OK in the message box confirming that the password was successfully created. You can display the Internet Explorer Web page that lists currently available rating systems by clicking Find Rating Systems in the Rating Systems area.
9.	In the Content Advisor dialog box, click OK. Then click OK in the message box confirming that Content Advisor has been enabled. In the Internet Options dialog box, the buttons in the Content Advisor area change to Disable and Settings.
10.	Close the Internet Options dialog box, and then close the Internet Explorer window. The Content Advisor settings are applied to all windows opened after this point. If you try to open a site that does not meet your criteria, Internet Explorer displays a dialog box restricting access to the site. You must enter the supervisor password to access sites that don't meet the established criteria. You can browse the Web to see if you come across a site restricted by Content Advisor. Keep in mind that only sites that include their ratings within the page code are filtered by Content Advisor.
11.	Click the Start button, type http://www.microsoft.com in the Start Search box, and then press . Internet Explorer starts and displays the Microsoft Corporation Web site home page. Content Advisor displays a warning that the page has been rated by a rating system that you don't have installed. Troubleshooting In fact, the RSACi rating system used by the Microsoft Web site has been merged into the ICRA rating system, but at the time we wrote this book, Content Advisor wasn't aware of that. Perhaps it will be by the time you work through this exercise.
12.	Select the Always allow this website to be viewed option, type P@ssw0rd in the Password box, and then click OK.
13.	Click any of the links in the Product Families list. Content Advisor again restricts you from displaying the page. Obviously, this type of constant restriction can be quite irritating. After you view a few other Web sites with your criteria in place, you might want to make adjustments to the Content Advisor settings to fine-tune the way it works.
14.	To disable Content Advisor, click Internet Options on the Tools menu, and on the Content tab of the Internet Options dialog box, click Disable. To prevent other people from changing the restrictions you have set on your computer, after activating Content Advisor, you must enter the supervisor password to change its settings or disable it.
15.	In the Supervisor Password Required message box, type P@ssw0rd in the Password box, and then click OK. If a message box notifies you that Content Advisor has been turned off, click OK. Then close the Internet Options dialog box.