Trying to do their part to make the Web more child-friendly, technology heavyweights including America Online, Microsoft and Yahoo say they've labeled almost every page on their sites with an updated content-assessment system. Living up to a commitment they made in October, the companies announced that they've labeled 93 percent of their pages in accordance with the Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA), a voluntary system that seeks to create a content-neutral guide for parents and children. The ICRA is an international nonprofit group that aims to balance efforts to protect children online while respecting free speech.

The companies plan to unveil their ICRA-related plans at an event Tuesday at the Tech Museum in San Jose, Calif. To participate in the plan, Web site operators fill out a questionnaire about material including sexual, violent and tobacco-related content. A metatag, or label, is then generated that lists the material, although it does not include a value judgment or rating of the site. Browsers and blocking programs that include ICRA's filtering technology can then use the information to determine whether a site meets a parent's criteria. The organization also unveiled a new ICRA filter.