FCC Releases Examination of Parental Control Technologies

The Federal Communications Commission has released its an assessment of the current state of the marketplace with respect to: the existence and availability of advanced blocking technologies; methods of encouraging the development, deployment and use of such technologies that do not affect the packaging or pricing of programming; and the existence, availability and use of parental empowerment tools and initiatives already in the market. The FCC concludes that no single parental control technology available today works across all media platforms. Moreover, even within each media platform, these technologies vary greatly with respect to the following criteria: (i) cost to consumers; (ii) level of consumer awareness/promotional and educational efforts; (iii) adoption rate; (iv) customer support; (v) ease of use; (vi) means to prevent children from overriding parental controls; (vii) blocking content/black listing; (viii) selecting content/white listing; (ix) access to multiple ratings systems; (x) parental understanding of ratings systems; (xi) reliance on non-ratings-based system; (xii) ability to monitor usage and view usage history; (xiii) ability to restrict access and usage; (xiv) access to parental controls outside of the home; and (xv) tracking. Interested parties told the FCC that there is the need for greater education and media literacy for parents and more effective diffusion of information about the tools available to them. They also urge the government to play a more substantial role in meeting this need.