News
Apple, developers wrestling over App Store pornographic content policy
By Charles Starrett
Senior Editor, iLounge
Published: Thursday, July 2, 2009
News Category: Apps + Games
Following its decision to allow bikini photo applications into the App Store, Apple has removed one such application from the App Store due to pornographic—in this case, illegal—content. The application BeautyMeter by German developers Braun Software has been on the store since January, but came under fire yesterday following the discovery that the developer was offering not only nude photos, but a nude photo of an underage girl. Similar to websites and apps such as Hot Or Not, BeautyMeter allowed users to upload pics of themselves for other people to judge. According to a report, one particular photo—which appeared to show full nudity—was labeled as being of a 15-year-old girl. After the report, Apple removed the application from the App Store.
Last week a separate application, Hottest Girls, was pulled from the App Store after adding topless photos of women to its available photo archive. At this point, it’s unclear what Apple’s exact intentions are in regards to such content and the App Store. Following the removal of Hottest Girls, Apple released a statement that said that the company “will not distribute applications that contain inappropriate content, such as pornography.” However, Apple’s App Store submission system provides checkboxes for such content on its content description page, including options for “Sexual Content or Nudity,” “Prolonged Graphic or sadistic realistic violence,” and “Graphic sexual content or nudity.” In addition, the company recently expanded the Parental Controls available to iPhone and iPod touch users that allow parents to keep applications rated above a certain level from being installed or run on the device.
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1
Apple really are going to have to make their policies on nudity and such a lot clearer than they currently are. Given the fact that Apple themselves are having tick boxes on the submission system for nudity and then pulling Apps which contain nudity makes little sense.
Posted by Johnathan on July 2, 2009 at 9:00 AM (PDT)
2
It’s become cliche, but we really need to get rid of this stupidity in the US. It’s perfectly OK to post a game whose object is to mutilate as many people as possible, but if a young person sees a breast they will be altered forever. Apple provided parental controls in OS 3.0 to put these decisions and responsibilities squarely where they belong: on the parents, and then decided to usurp that responsibility. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Posted by Tony Karakashian on July 2, 2009 at 10:44 AM (PDT)
3
Yeah, this is a stupid policy, particularly when applied to an app that just displays user-generated content.
It’s ok to view it in Safari, because that just views the internet and we can’t control that, but once that same web page is displayed in any other app, the app developer becomes responsible for it?
Posted by dave on July 2, 2009 at 12:05 PM (PDT)
4
Perhaps it’s not Apple who’s confused about its policies, but just everyone else. There’s nothing illogical about it allowing for nude pictures while also forbidding pornography. They’re not necessarily the same thing.
Posted by Griff on July 2, 2009 at 3:09 PM (PDT)
5
What about pornographic wrestling?
Posted by Austin on July 3, 2009 at 9:19 AM (PDT)