Our Mission
To build the world's most simple, effective filtering software and distribute it for free.
Our Goal
To empower parents with greater control over the forms of content their family accesses online.
Who We Are
The founders of WRAAC, all of whom have families and children of their own, have come together from diverse backgrounds and varying industries. Their mission is to build the world's most simple, effective filtering software and distribute it for free. The members of WRAAC.org realized that although many websites are self-labeled with the ICRA label, there has been no major effort to date (government nor corporate) to provide the public with free and effective child filtering tools.
Recent government attempts at internet content control have been grossly ineffective. Focused mostly on webmaster fines and penalties, lawmakers have been attempting to solve the issue by defining what is morally acceptable to its public instead of empowering parents to make their own choices.
Commercial filtering has fallen short. Many parents wish to control the content their family views online, but the tools to date have been complex, inflexible, and costly.
A Brief History
A system for 'website labeling' was created by the World Wide Web consortium in 1998. They designed a system known as PICS (Platform for Internet Content Selection). It was originally designed to help parents and teachers control what children access on the internet.
in 1999 the Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA) used the PICS system to create a well-defined content vocabulary for site labeling. To state simply, they made it easy for webmasters to describe the content of a website by allowing the label to be embedded directly in the html code of the site.
What We Do
We developed the Parental Control Bar. We make no moral judgments with regard to websites or website content. What we simply do is label the content and nature of the most popular websites on the internet. Our website labeling data (together with our simple, free browser filtering tool) empowers parents to make their own decision on the forms of content that enters the home.
How It Works
When your child attempts to access a website the toolbar first checks if the site is self-labeled, compares this site label to your parental settings and determines whether to block or allow access. If the site is not self-labeled, then the toolbar scans our extensive list of 3rd-party labels before deciding whether to block or allow. The toolbar also allows parents to add specific websites to a personal 'always blocked' or 'always allowed' list. Although no system is ever perfect and we cannot guarantee that all unwanted websites will be blocked, parents will be able to more effectively control the types of websites their children access with this tool. WRAAC continues to promote website self-labeling and is constantly 3rd-party labeling the most popular unlabeled sites on the internet, so that this tool remains and effective browser filtering tool.
It's FREE and it's easy!
