As a web developer, hosting provider and internet user, I do not understand how such a scheme would be possible.  There are a number of issues that need to be considered before anything like this is implemented in this (or any other) country.

Firstly – the majority of websites available on the internet are not hosted on servers based in the UK.  As such, they are not under the jurisdiction of our laws.  Additionally, hosting costs in the UK are significantly higher than other countries such as the United States and Europe.  This poses a huge problem for such a scheme as the majority of websites are likely to ignore the requirement of content ratings and there is nothing our government can do apart from completely block access to unrated sites.

A rating scheme is also clearly open for abuse.  As proved with cinema, video and game rating schemes already in place, a large proportion of people do not pay attention to them.  Parents continue to buy 18 rated games for children of much younger age.  In the case of this scheme, children would probably still be able to view websites not suitable for their age group unless there was some way of verifying their age.

Some sites already implement an ‘age filter’ of sorts.  For example, the Guinness.com website asks for your date of birth before you enter the site.  It doesn’t take much effort to work around this filter.  It also isn’t best practice to provide your date of birth to any website as it could potentially be used for identity theft.  Unless there is a way to safely and accurately identify a user’s age, a rating system can only act as a guide and would still require parents to monitor usage of the internet.

A further concern is how a website will actually be rated.  Technically it is possible to rate the content of a website through the use of Meta tags (and a W3C standard already exists – PICS).  But this plan would rely on a level of trust between website owners and users.  What would stop me from running a “harmful” porn website, and classifying it as “suitable for all ages?”  A safer way to do it would be using third party rating systems, similar to the way secure certificates are provided at the moment.  However this would likely incur a cost to the owner as the third party would need to validate the content of the site.  An additional cost in development is likely to force website owners to look abroad for hosting services that do not require this level of regulation – harming the UK industry and making the rating system useless.

The only ‘safe’ way a rating system could be done is through an independent government funded organisation whose sole job it is to rate websites – similar to the BBFC.  However this opens a whole new can of worms.  Who would regulate the regulators?  How can we ensure that the ratings are fair?  How can we ensure that an anti-government website isn’t deemed “dangerous” and blocked by internet providers?  How will it be paid for (it is bound to be extremely expensive)? An existing scheme like this has already come under heavy fire in recent weeks after the Internet Watch Foundation added a Wikipedia page to its block list, essentially stopping the whole of the UK from editing the site.

In the end, it just appears to be another plan by a government minister who does not know how the Internet works.  For those who have read my blog for a while, I posted about a similar plan in May by the Home Secretary who wants a national database of all emails and phone calls sent in the UK.

Now, I’m all for making the internet safer for children and vulnerable people.  However, systems already exist to do this – there is plenty of “Net nanny” software available to stop people accessing websites with certain keywords or content.  You can even buy hardware solutions which will do it for you.  We do not need the government deciding what is safe for us to view.  This just brings us another step closer to countries like China.

I think it is about time the entire government is sent back to school to learn how the real world works, because they have quite clearly forgotten.

You can get more information at Techcrunch and The Social Programmer.

This strikes me as a great idea – not only could it save money by just having one brand instead of 200, but it could help people recognise the work that government does.

After reading the article, I decided to take a look at branding used by our government here in the UK.  I surprised to learn about the sheer scale of central government and the huge number of brands in use.

The UK Government is comprised of around 45 departments & ministries (such as the Department for Transport and HM Treasury).  It also has approximately 72 executive agencies – these are organisations that have a degree of autonomy but are still linked to a particular department (such as the Food Standards Agency, Office of Fair Trading and the Crown Prosecution Service).  In addition to these, there are at, last count, 827 Non-Departmental Public Bodies (source: Cabinet Office, 2007).  These are agencies that are sponsored by government to deliver a particular public service such as the Environment Agency, the various arts councils and the British Potato Council.  You can find lists of the various departments / agencies on wikipedia (1 & 2).

It should be pointed out that this is just central government – it does not include local government (council councils etc), or the regional governments of Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland (or their associated public bodies).  Furthermore; it does not include organisations such as the Police, Fire department or the NHS.

A large number of these organisations have their own branding – that’s nearly 1,000 different corporate images!  The amount of money spent developing; maintaining and re-developing these brands must be astronomical.

The cabinet is regularly re-shuffled, which sometimes brings with it department splits, mergers, disbanding and creation.  In the last few reshuffles for example, the Department for Constitutional Affairs merged with some parts of the Home Office to create the Ministry of Justice; the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) was split in half, becoming the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) and the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS); the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) was created; and the Office of Deputy Prime Minister became the Department for Communities and Local Government.  Quite a few changes!

With each of these changes, an old brand has been retired, and new brands created.  Gone are the Department for Constitutional Affairs, Department for Education and Skills, and the Office of Deputy Prime Minister.  Now we have five new brands in government.

If the Government just had one brand – “HM Government” or “UK Government”, with just one logo, one typeface, one style, the amount of money that could be saved during each reshuffle could be huge.

Now I’m not suggesting that we replace all 944 brands with just one - that would be a bit draconian, however, a substantial slimming down of brands within central government makes a lot of sense.  What do you think?

For those that don’t know much about the US government, I thought I’d put together a “Crash Course” in how it works and what these elections are for.  This crash course has been inspired by “A Crash Course In…” a series of articles that appear in the Waterfront every fortnight written by Dan Shaw – Deputy World News Editor.  There may be inaccuracies in this, so apologies in advance!

A Crash Course in… The US Federal Government

The US Federal Government is made up of three branches – the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches.  The aim of the three branches is to ensure the decisions made are in the interest of every citizen.

The Executive branch of the US Government consists of the President of the United States and his officials.  In total, nearly four million people work in this part of the government, including over one million military personnel.  The President has a wide range of powers, including the ability to propose new laws.  Many of the decisions made by the President are overseen and scrutinised by the two Houses of Congress.  Presidents and Vice Presidents serve for a term of four years but are allowed to hold their office for a maximum of 8 years.

The Legislative branch consists of the two Houses of Congress, the first of which is the United States Senate.  The Senate is made up of 100 Senators – two from each State and each serving for six years.  Every two years, a third of the Senate are up for re-election – this third is known as a “class”.  The Senate’s responsibilities include the passing of new laws (much like the House of Lords in the UK) and appointing new ambassadors, judges and cabinet officers.  The second house – the House of Representatives – is made up of 435 congressmen from around the country.  The number of seats from each state is based upon their population and each seat is re-elected every two years – congressmen can be re-elected an unlimited number of times – unlike the President of the United States.  The majority of new laws are introduced in the House of Representatives.

The Judicial branch consists of the Supreme Court of the United States (a panel of nine judges), the Courts of Appeals and the District Courts.  The purpose of these courts is to ensure that laws passed by the other two branches are constitutional.  The members of the Supreme Court are nominated by the President of the United States and confirmed by the Senate.  Once appointed, members serve until they retire.

Elections are held every two years to elect the members of the House of Congress and a “class” of the Senate.  Every second election, the President and Vice-President of the United States also elected.

I would advise anyone who reads this to go and download the movie from the website and have a watch. For a party election broadcast, I’m surprised. Its actually quite funny and I can’t wait for the next episode to air on Thursday. However it set me off thinking about how the Conservatives are planning on countering this advert. Are they going to follow the same sort of format… picking on Blair? or are they going to do something different?

If they go with the same format, what object / animal would they portray Blair / Brown as? Comments appreciated.