Pixelated Semantics

System and method for controlling access to internet sites

A new US patent claims to provide "A method and system for providing flexible access to Internet sites". Amongst the supporting documentation is a table "An exemplary list of Internet categories" [Table 1]. Here the authors strive to define the range of subject topics encountered on the internet [in English language, of course....] Potentially, this is like labelling grains of sand: an endlessly recursive activity. The idea is to create information categories that internet users can be allowed or denied access to (no self-regulation here) automatically.

The category for "Tasteless" is both puzzling and amusing. It states:

"Tasteless: Offensive or useless sites, grotesque depictions caused by "acts of God."

God is an agent for grotesque depictions, then. And so "violence" is categorised by "gross depictions caused by acts of man". God, beyond blame for tastelessness, offends, while man violates, for ever in haste to hand authority to someone or something Other.

A label for "grotesque depictions caused by acts of God" deserves more expansion than "tasteless", surely.

United States Patent 6,606,659 Hegli , et al. August 12, 2003 http://www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html

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