Content Labels

Millions of Web sites today contain a visual Trustmark of some kind. Some examples include VeriSign, GeoTrust and TRUSTe. Each one is limitied however, because you must first visit a Web site to see if it complies with a particular standard or code of conduct.

The only information search engines provide is the title and description of each Web site, nothing more. How do you know which Web sites are trustworthy?

A Content Label is a file that contains Metadata and can be detected by search engines and browsers which means users can find out which sites have Trustmarks without having to visit them.

Content Labels act in a similar fashion to SSL Certificates. However, SSL Certificates are restricted to making claims about an entire Web site for security and identification purposes. Content Labels on the other hand, can be used to make assertions about an entire domain, or specific Web pages.

Use cases

Below are just a few use cases which benefit from Content Labels

• W3C Web Accessibility Standards
• W3C Mobile Web Initiative Best Practices ‘mobileOK’
• Child Safety ‘ICRA’
• Identity (anit-Phishing)
• Copyright ‘Creative Commons’
• Privacy code of conduct
• E-commerce code of conduct

Technical stuff

Segala was instrumental in the creation of the W3C’s first ever incubator activity to help create Content Labelling standards for the Web, now known as POWDER. We helped to create the original charter and we are co-author of the final report with ICRA.

Content Labels will soon be ratified as a formal W3C Recommendation and will replace PICS, the system that is currently in use by Internet Explorer today for filtering content using Site Advisor.

mobileOK

Web site owners who wish to make conformance claims about the W3C Mobile Web Initiative (MWI) Best Pracitces (mobileOK) will do so in the form of a Content Label. It won’t be possible for a Web site to be mobileOK unless it is proactive in making such a claim.

Segala is co-author of the mobileOK conformance document with Google so we’re in an excellent position to enable you to help clients build mobile-friendly Web sites.

Related links

• To learn more about Content Labels, visit our main Web site.
• Learn more about the Trustmark
• Learn more about the Certificate