Does using a PICS compliant software filter slow communication with the Internet?
If the filter asks a label bureau for labels, as described above, the extra request will take extra time. There are various techniques, including keeping local copies of labels and making parallel requests, that can reduce this performance penalty. This is likely to be a point of significant competition between vendors. Q: Can an Internet access service provider limit access for all subscribers to things labeled a particular way or can PICS compliant labels only be used to limit access at the user level? Can a country limit access to all its Internet access service providers to particular categories of labels? A: That depends on how the network is configured. If an access provider, or a country, has choke points through which all requests travel, it could install the filtering software at the choke points. It is a more natural and effective use of the technology to put control in the hands of end-users, because different users will want to limit access to different things.
