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North American cases illustrate how dangerous conflicting rights can be to children. In R.v. Sharp 347 , a self-proclaimed pedophile argued that Canada’s laws on child pornographyviolated his freedom of expression that is guaranteed in the Canadian Charter of Rights andFreedoms. He was successful at the court of first instance and court of appeal. In Ashcroftv. Free Speech Coalition 348 it was decided by the US Supreme Court that the “virtual childpornography” of the federal Child Pornography Prevention Act violated the first amendmentto the US Constitution.5.2 Filtering and Content Rating SystemsTechnologies are being developed that filter and rate content so that individuals andInternet service providers (ISPs) can prevent harmful material from entering their spheres.These systems are most useful in regulating legal but undesirable material. David Kerr, theChief Executive of the Internet Watch Foundation in the United Kingdom, has suggestedthat, “most governments and much of the industry have accepted that this approach is thebest hope for maintaining free speech on the Internet, whilst allowing consumers to choosewhat they do not wish to see”. 349 Once perfected, this technology could help eliminate thereceipt of such information, but does little to stop the creation and dissemination, to awilling recipient, of child pornography unless there is universal cooperation on the part ofISPs.Current rating systems are highly subjective, and therefore do not reflect an internationallyrecognised standard. Filtering systems in their present state have many weaknesses. Anoften-cited example is the fact that, by filtering out keywords, useful information pertainingto sex education or health is blocked. The Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA),an international non-profit membership organisation promotes child protection and freespeech rights through self-regulation. 350 ICRA provides Internet content providers theopportunity to label their sites so as to allow the end users to filter content they do notthink is appropriate. Through completion of a questionnaire content provider completea series of descriptors, which allows them to label their sites. The descriptors are labelsthat contain comprehensive definitions to describe what can be found on the website.For instance “sexual material” contains passionate kissing, obscured or implied sexual acts,erotica etc. While there is some subjectivity when determining the descriptors, ICRAhas developed an international consultation process, therefore providing the descriptorselection with reasonable consistency through different cultures and languages. As well, thelabels are descriptive, rather than evaluative, ensuring the process is more objective. Thereare over 100,000 content providers that have been labelled, including Microsoft, AOL andYahoo that represent millions of webpages. It should be noted however, that the process86|Private Sector Accountability in Combating the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children