Websites get age ratings from new ISP

Certificate 18

A new internet service provider (ISP) is launching in the UK with its own unique selling point age ratings on websites.

Tibboh has worked alongside the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) to implement a film-style age rating for about three billion websites with the aim to add thousands more on a daily basis.

Webfiltering can limit a child's access to sites classified as a U, PG, 12, 15 or 18 at the parent's request. However, any sites yet to be classified cannot be viewed by those limited to U and PG pages.

"Whether at home, at school or with friends, Tibboh allows children unlimited mobile internet access to an exciting range of learning and entertainment that's safer and suitable for their age," claimed a statement on the company's website.

Some youngsters may be less than impressed as social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook have been classified as a 12 users are meant to be 13 to use Facebook anyway with blogging sites such as WordPress classified as a 15.

At present, the company only offers this service as a 3G broadband package for 19.99 a month with a 15GB data limit.

Jennifer Scott

Jennifer Scott is a former freelance journalist and currently political reporter for Sky News. She has a varied writing history, having started her career at Dennis Publishing, working in various roles across its business technology titles, including ITPro. Jennifer has specialised in a number of areas over the years and has produced a wealth of content for ITPro, focusing largely on data storage, networking, cloud computing, and telecommunications.

Most recently Jennifer has turned her skills to the political sphere and broadcast journalism, where she has worked for the BBC as a political reporter, before moving to Sky News.