The Traffic Light Protocol (TLP) is a widely used standard for marking information with sharing constraints. Its second version helps organizations communicate quickly whether a piece of information may be redistributed and to whom. That makes it a practical tool for incident response and threat intelligence sharing.
However, TLP is not a classification scheme. It does not indicate how sensitive information is, how long it should be retained, or what protective controls apply. Internal information classification systems are designed to capture those details, based on business impact and regulatory requirements.
The SANS ISC diary notes that TLP should not replace internal classification. The two serve different purposes: TLP governs sharing, while internal classification governs handling. Using TLP as a substitute could lead to over- or under-protection, because the protocol was never designed to express the full range of data management needs.