The original goal was to empower parents and teachers to provide kid-safe lenses. As a bonus, however, PICS provides a general labeling infrastructure that is now available for all kinds of uses. PICS establishes conventions for label formats and distribution methods without dictating a labeling vocabulary or determining who should pay attention to which labels. It is analogous to specifying where on a package a label should appear and in what font it should be printed without specifying what it should say. Once vocabularies and labels are expressed in PICS format, selection software can interpret them and do useful things such as blocking access or verifying the page's integrity.
Any independent organization can specify a vocabulary for labeling.
An RSACi label has four numbers indicating the levels of language, violence, nudity, and sex. Paradoxically, setting technical standards for labeling has encouraged diversity, because selection software and labeling services can be developed independently. But this new labeling infrastructure raises two major concerns. First, publishers can label their own sites but can't prevent anyone else from distributing labels about their sites. That means the Christian Coalition can distribute a label advising people that an AIDS education page is inappropriate for children, even though the publisher may think it's vital to save children's lives.