Friday, Jan 22, 2010    Text size: 

While consumers and adult marketers alike want to see erotic material available from the App Store, a growing chorus of objection is being heard from parents, prudes, teachers and others, who either object to this material altogether, or who feel that existing parental controls fall far short of what is needed.

Although little can be done about the former, as for the latter objection, the task of providing effective and comprehensive parental controls is not an easy one; especially given the fact that much of the audience these controls are meant to block are far more technically sophisticated than those trying to block them. In other words, simple controls and protocols may prevent a minor's "accidental" access to adult content, but they will not likely thwart a determined teen from obtaining a taste of the forbidden fruit.

Into this mix enters the enhanced parental controls available on the iPhone OS which allow parents to choose the age level of apps appropriate for their child to purchase — up to and including the swimsuit model laden 17+ category, which critics call softcore porn.

This system, while effective at preventing underage viewers from purchasing racier fare, is not preventing audiences of all ages from seeing the mature titles being advertised at the App Store, as blogger, developer and educator Fraser Speirs recently noted while trying to deploy iPod Touch devices to his school's 100 students — a task he could not perform while remaining within school guidelines due to the material he viewed.

"The App Store is so full of soft porn apps that I cannot provide access to the App Store and comply with our acceptable use policies," Speirs said. "The core problem is this: none of the parental controls actually remove restricted-rating applications from App Store searches and browsing. All the restrictions do is prevent purchase of the app."

Speirs went on to cite various objectionable titles, including "Amateur Swimsuit Doll," that were viewable in the catalog with parental controls set to allow content appropriate for children ages four and up.

One might argue that allowing four year old children to surf the App Store and begin a life of technological addiction is less healthy than letting them see a thumbnail image of a smiling girl in a bikini, but the point about inconsistent restriction levels remains.

The iPhone itself does a better job of policing policy however, as restricted apps are not available for purchase and their screenshots are hidden as well, but as Speirs points out, the apps names and descriptions are so suggestive as to be inappropriate for school.

"Now, of course, the Internet itself contains plenty of porn. However, we have tools in place to deal with that: logging and filtering proxies," Speirs said. "I've never believed that technology alone can keep children safe on the Internet, but a combination of technology, policy and a good chance of being caught has deterred most so far."

"The problem with the App Store on iPhone OS and in iTunes on the desktop is that it can't be filtered in the same way," Speirs added. "All HTTP requests go to some server ending in phobos.apple.com, and it's very hard to distinguish suitable content from unsuitable. Even if we could, it's not clear how that would leave the user in a non-browser client like iTunes when they tripped the filter."

Speirs has filed radar bugs with Apple over the issue, but it remains unclear what steps the company will take to resolve the problem.