The World Wide Web Consortium, an industry group of high-tech firms, plans to add code to the HTTP protocol that allows a rating field to warn parents of inappropriate content.
The new software will be added later this summer. Once the system is in place, computer users will be able to set their Web browsers up to block access to objectionable sites, officials say.
The consortium is made up of 59 companies including AT&T, Microsoft, Digital Equipment Corporation, and Sun Microsystems, and is headed by Tim Berners-Lee, the designer of the World Wide Web.
