Patent ID: 8176079

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for providing a recursive classification of the contents of a URL, at least a portion of the method being performed by a server-side computing device comprising at least one processor, the method comprising: receiving, from an access-restriction module installed on an additional computing device, a request for a URL-classification list for a base URL; constructing the URL-classification list for the base URL, the URL-classification list comprising: content categories that identify genres of content that occur in the base URL; content categories that identify genres of content that occur in any URL embedded in the base URL; providing, in response to the request, the URL-classification list for the base URL to the access-restriction module installed on the additional computing device to enable the access-restriction module to determine whether to permit a user to access the base URL by: retrieving a user-categories list for the user that specifies content categories that the user is authorized to access; determining, by comparing the content categories contained within the URL-classification list with the content categories specified in the user-categories list, that the URL-classification list does not contain any content categories that the user is not authorized to access; upon determining that the URL-classification list does not contain any content categories that the user is not authorized to access, permitting the user to access the base URL.