An annual world gathering on wireless technology and telephony spent a good part of the week pondering what to do about keeping underage mobile unit users from accessing porn.
"We've learned from fixed-line (Internet)," said Vodafone UK chief of content services Al Russell to the 3GSM World Congress, "that if you leave it too late the genie gets out of the bottle."
The concerns were provoked by both third-generation mobile phones and services and rising pressure from governments and family-interest groups, and Vodafone was one company saying they would support voluntary age checking and content filtering in their home country Britain and urge partners and competitors alike to keep the regulators away by backing similar voluntary efforts around the world.
But at the same time the 3GSM conference addressed how to keep the porn out of the under-18 mobile handset user, French company 1633 Publishing was displaying licensed Playboy Enterprises telephone content and celebrating a new deal it has for the exclusive global rights to Pamela Anderson imagery over mobile devices.
The concerns about keeping adult content away from underage mobile users arose the same week the U.S. Federal Communications Commission urged a major mobile phone-oriented trade group to continue its own self-policing efforts at keeping porn from under-18 mobile technology users.
Voluntary British guidelines include wireless networks blocking adult services to new mobile handsets by default, with the blocks broken only if a user can prove to be 18 years old or older. Comparable industry initiatives are said to be under consideration in the U.S. and France, while Germany is said to have statutory rules for such concerns already in place and Australia planning to introduce draft legislation in its Parliament.
