Patent ID: 7904473
Filing Date: 2011-03-08
Classification: G06F,G06Q,H04L,Y10S

Abstract:
1. A computer-implemented method comprising: maintaining, on one or more computer-readable storage devices, a plurality of different rating groups, each rating group providing a rating that relates to at least one piece of electronic content and that is compiled based on information received from a plurality of guardians evaluating the at least one piece of electronic content; receiving, from a first guardian, a selection of at least first and second rating groups to apply to a set of users associated with the first guardian to control access to electronic content by the set of users; receiving a request for a piece of electronic content from a user; determining whether the user from which the request was received is within the set of users associated with the first guardian; in response to a determination that the user is within the set of users associated with the first guardian, accessing information associated with the first and second rating groups from the one or more computer-readable storage devices; determining, using a processor, whether or not to provide access to the requested piece of electronic content to the user based on an indication or absence of a compiled rating for the requested piece of content within the first and second rating groups, whereby access to the requested piece of content is denied based on the compiled rating for the requested piece of content that exists within at least one of the first and second rating groups, the complied rating within the second rating group being applied when there is the absence of a compiled rating for the requested piece of content in the first rating group; receiving a request to form a new rating group and an identification of required characteristics for the new rating group; forming the new rating group based on the request; adding the new rating group to the maintained rating groups; receiving a request from a second guardian to submit, to the new rating group, information evaluating content to enable control of content accessed by users; verifying that the second guardian satisfies the required characteristics; and enabling the second guardian to submit the information evaluating content based on the verification that the second guardian satisfies the required characteristics.