REDMOND, Wash.—Microsoft has followed the mobile app leader (i.e. Apple) with a firm no-porn policy for the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace.
"Images that are sexually suggestive or provocative, Content that generally falls under the category of pornography, or Content that a reasonable person would consider to be adult or borderline adult content," states Microsoft in its Windows Phone 7 app guidelines.
While not yet clarifying whether it will offer any alternative way of loading applications, the software company appears to be as determined as Apple to control apps deployed on the Windows Phone 7 OS.
“Businesses wanting their own privately developed, privately deployed software will still have to go via Marketplace,” wrote Ars Technica. “Their programs will still be private, but as things stand, there won't be any mechanism for cutting out the middleman.”
The resolve by these two corporate giants to exert complete control leaves the open source-oriented Google and its Android operating system as the last man standing in terms of giving app developers the freedom to create sexy, if not downright pornographic, applications for consumers to enjoy on their mobile devices.
No one thinks it’s a big deal, because porn is massively accessible through browsers anyway and developers have yet to reach the outer limits of HTML5 capabilities. But in time it may well become a very big deal, and when and if it does, Android may very well be the last man standing as the only place where real creativity, and not just of the sexy sort, can be practiced for the real-world enjoyment of the masses.
Like all modern wars, however, this one will continue for years to come, with corporate strategies changing as quickly as the tides of fortune. In other words, to be continued …
