Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput – Computer network managing – Computer network access regulating
Reexamination Certificate
1999-08-26
2001-09-25
Sheikh, Ayaz (Department: 2155)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput
Computer network managing
Computer network access regulating
C709S203000, C709S217000, C709S241000, C707S793000, C707S793000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06295559
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates generally to methods for rating hypermedia for objectionable content. More particularly, it relates to methods for rating a search result page using ratings of units within the page.
BACKGROUND ART
The astronomical growth of the World Wide Web in the last decade has put a wide variety of information at the fingertips of anyone with access to a computer connected to the internet. In particular, parents and teachers have found the internet to be a rich educational tool for children, allowing them to conduct research that would in the past have either been impossible or taken far too long to be feasible. In addition to valuable information, however, children also have access to offensive or inappropriate information, including violence, pornography, and hate-motivated speech. Because the World Wide Web is inherently a forum for unrestricted content from any source, censoring material that some find objectionable is an unacceptable solution. The browser determines whether or not to display a document by applying a set of user-specified criteria. For example, the browser may have access to a list of excluded sites or included sites, provided by a commercial service or a parent or educator. Users can also choose to receive documents only through a Web proxy server, which compares the requested document with an exclusion or inclusion list before sending it to the client computer. Another method, developed by the Recreational Software Advisory Council (RSAC), provides a detailed rating system; ratings are stored by the author or content provider in a specific format with a document's meta-information. Current Web browsers can extract the ratings and compare them with user-specified content levels to determine whether or not to display the document. The user can also set the browser not to display pages without a rating.
One problem with all of the currently-existing solutions is that they cannot keep up with the rate at which Web pages are being added or modified. Currently, both rating sites and adding sites to exclusion lists require human labor that is subjective and time consuming. Even if it were possible to evaluate every new site, there is still no way to apply present methods to dynamically created documents, for example, search result pages. Search engines receive a user query, search an index to find applicable documents, and create a search result page listing a number of the located documents. The search result page typically includes a title and short abstract or extract, along with the Uniform Resource Locator (URL), for each retrieved document. The search result page itself might have objectionable content in the document summary information, or it might contain hyperlinks to sites with objectionable content. One way to address this problem is for browsers not to display search result pages at all. Without search engines, though, internet research is significantly limited.
AltaVista™, a well-known search engine, has developed a Family Filter™ in cooperation with SurfWatch™, a company that pioneered the concept of filtering objectionable content on the Web. The filter can be applied to either audio, image, and video, or to all content, including text. When the filter is turned on, documents that were previously classified as objectionable are prevented from appearing in the search results. Objectionable content falls into one of five categories: Drugs/Alcohol/Tobacco, Gambling, Hate Speech, Sexually Explicit, and Violence. A significant drawback to the Family Filter™ is its lack of flexibility and user input in blocking access to sites. For example, some parents may want to protect their children from exposure to hate speech, but not from other types of offensive material. Different users also have different standards for objectionable content within each category. The Family Filter™ has no means for accommodating the broad variety of user requirements.
There is a need, therefore, for a method for rating automatically-generated documents that allows for user flexibility in the definition of objectionable content.
OBJECTS AND ADVANTAGES
Accordingly, it is a primary object of the present invention to provide a method for rating a search result page for objectionable content.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a method that allows for user flexibility in defining objectionable content.
It is an additional object of the invention to provide a method that can be used for documents containing text, audio, or image files.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an automatic rating method that works with existing manual rating methods and therefore requires minimal system changes.
SUMMARY
These objects and advantages are attained by a computer-implemented method for providing rated hypermedia content, in which the rating represents the degree to which the content is objectionable. The method includes four steps: generating raw hypermedia content from a set of units, obtaining content rating vectors associated with each unit, deriving a composite content rating vector for the raw hypermedia content from the content rating vectors, and storing the composite content rating vector in the raw hypermedia content to produce the rated hypermedia content. The units contain data from a set of external data files, and the content rating vectors represent the degrees to which the external data files are objectionable. For example, the units might contain a brief extract from and hyperlink to the external data file. The content rating vectors may be obtained directly from the external files, for example, in the files' meta-information, or they may be generated automatically. The external data files may be of any type, including text, audio, or image.
Also included in the present invention is a method for providing a rated search result page to a client machine. First, a raw search result page is generated by a search engine in response to a search query from the client machine. The raw search result page consists of a set of units with associated content rating vectors, which represent degrees of objectionable content. Content rating vectors are obtained and used in deriving a composite content rating vector for the raw search result page. The composite content rating vector is stored in the raw search result page to produce the rated search result page, and the rated search result page is transmitted over a computer network to the client machine.
Preferably, the units represent data files or Web pages. For example, a unit may include a title, summary, first few words, or URL for a Web page matching the search query. The data files can be of any type, including text, audio, or image. Content rating vectors are obtained either directly from the data files, if they have been previously rated, or by automatically rating the data files for objectionable content. Content rating vectors then represent degrees to which the data files are objectionable.
The composite content rating vector comprises a set of components, and each component is derived from corresponding components of the content rating vectors associated with the units. In one embodiment, each component of the composite content rating vector is equal to the maximum value of the corresponding components of the content rating vectors. This is especially useful when the units represent data files.
The composite content rating vector can be extracted and read by the client machine. For example, the composite content rating vector stored in a search result page can be read by a Web browser at a client computer. Depending on preset user limit values defining objectionable content, the browser displays the search result page, or displays a message indicating why the search result page cannot be viewed.
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patent: 5195135 (1993-03-01), Palmer
patent: 5377354 (1994-12-01), Scannell et al.
patent: 5619648 (1997-04-01), Canale et al.
patent: 5678041 (1997-10-01), Baker et al.
patent: 5691972 (1997-11-01), Tsuga et al.
patent: 5706507 (1998-01-01),
Emens Michael Lawrence
Kraft Reiner
Sundaresan Neelakantan
International Business Machines - Corporation
Jean Frantz B.
Lumen Intellectual Property Services
Sheikh Ayaz
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