An interesting proposal is under consideration at the moment. As pages such as Newzbin and The Pirate Bay have been blocked by all major UK providers, the time has come for the industry to consider what the websites are going to display when a user lands on the homepage of these blocked URLs.

A message, also known as HTTP Error Code 451, has been proposed which would tell the web user that the page was not available due to "legal reasons".

At the moment providers simply refer their customers to error pages, for example the oh-so popular 404 (Page Not Found) or the slightly less known 403 (Forbidden) without letting the user know more details as to why his selected page was blocked.

The decision now is in the hands of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), who will either give the 451 error the green light or veto the idea altogether.

More detail on what the 451 page is to display is as follows:

"This status code indicates that the server is subject to legal restrictions which prevent it servicing the request. Since such restrictions typically apply to all operators in a legal jurisdiction, the server in question may or may not be an origin server. The restrictions typically most directly affect the operations of ISPs and search engines."

The error should also inform the user which authority imposed the block and why (i.e legal reasons).

The main discrepancy could arise in blocking adult content as the pages are "legal" but simply not appropriate for certain audiences. It's interesting to see what the messages will say in these cases - "you are too young" or "not this time, son"?