Protecting Children From Tiny Porn

Mobile operators are conflicted about porn -- they want the money, but not the hassles of dealing with adult content. Carriers have made plenty of unsuccessful efforts to filter porn and restrict access to it, legally mandated in some places but in others driven by a fear of being held responsible should some parent get upset that their kid figured out how to look at naked women on his phone. Carriers' walled gardens give them a level of responsibility for the content that's inside -- a responsibility wired ISPs have been able to avoid. Russell Buckley points out, though, that that opening up the gardens and allowing kids out on to the big, bad Internet could be a no-win situation, if the likes of reactionary tabloids start printing "X Operator Gave My Kid Porn" stories and tarnishing the carrier's reputation. Because of this, he says, companies selling parental controls for mobile phones have a bright future -- but will putting the controls in the phone instead of the network be more successful?

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