CUPERTINO, Calif. — Another small slice of porn — softcore, of course — has come and gone in Apple's App Store for iPhones. The bad part is it was child porn: a nude photo of a 15-year-old girl.
Just last week, AVN.com reported on the Hottest Girls app sneaking in topless and nude shots of models, then claiming to be overloaded with demand for the app, pulling it from iTunes.
Now, there's been another incident, only this time it's a clear case of child porn, reports NetworkWorld.
What was allegedly a photo of an anonymous, completely naked 15-year-old girl was posted to the iPhone application BeautyMeter, then removed.
BeautyMeter is similar to websites such as Hot or Not, where users rate amateur models and everyday pics posted by almost anyone.
The discovery of the nude shot of the underage teen girl was made by iPhone app review site Krapps, while evaluating the app.
According to BeautyMeter's terms and conditions, the developers "don't review each uploaded photo exclusively but from time to time we will clean up. You can mark a photo as spam so the community is able to regulate among themselves material that they don't like." The developers may think this lets them off the hook. Lawyers and law enforcement may see it otherwise.
Apple's policy is far more clearly stated: "Apple will not distribute applications that contain inappropriate content, such as pornography."
Nonetheless, it appears that recently, more developers are sneaking things in under the radar, by submitting PG-13 apps that later add racier material once in use.
On its website, BeautyMeter posted a message Thursday: "In cause of some inappropriate content upload we cleaned up our database and hardened our review process so the release time can be higher since now. As described in our terms and conditions, NO nude content is allowed (bikini content is allowed). Apple has removed the application from the App Store in cause of that kind of content — we fully understand their act doing this step."
The BeautyMeter photo, while supposedly uploaded by a user, could pose a much bigger problem. Because the nude girl is said to be underage, the incident could well lead to severe legal action taken against the developers and perhaps even Apple, though the app was pulled.
Stay tuned.
