Apple responds to App Store sex app removals

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Apple responds to App Store sex app removals

Following a report from last week suggesting that Apple was banning “overtly sexual” content from the App Store, Apple offered a brief statement on the matter in response to an inquiry from iLounge. “Whenever we receive customer complaints about objectionable content we review them,” said Apple representative Trudy Miller. “If we find these apps contain inappropriate material we remove them and request the developer make any necessary changes in order to be distributed by Apple.” The statement references an application removal notice from Apple previously posted online, stating that the company had received “numerous complaints” about sexual content on the App Store, and that it had changed its guidelines appropriately. After publication of the notice, application tracking site AppShopper.com released a graph showing over 5,000 application removals from February 17-20.

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Comments

1

While I 100% understand Apple wanting to keep the Apple Store (and image) “clean” by removing these apps, I think Apple has now reached a point where they need to consider an “adult” section for the Store.
If the platform were “open” then it would be a non-issue, but it’s not.
I personally don’t want/need any of these apps, but why shouldn’t adults be able to get AND make them if there’s a market for them?

Posted by sb on February 22, 2010 at 2:29 PM (PDT)

2

I agree; it should be available in a separate section. I’m really tired of looking in the entainment category and getting nothing but soft porn

Posted by tcruiser on February 22, 2010 at 4:47 PM (PDT)

3

Interesting that Apple is so concerned about removing apps that customers complain about being offensive, but when one comes flags an iTunes Music review that is offensive, vulgar, off-topic, homophobic, or racist, Apple is VERY slow to remove said review—if they remove it at all. (This is particularly true of the last two offenses.)

Posted by JonnyOneNote on February 22, 2010 at 9:22 PM (PDT)

4

This is ridiculous. Apple sells plenty of sexually themed music and movies and they don’t have any problem with it. I think it’s also interesting that Sports Illustraed’s swimsuit app remains in the store while thousands of other apps that had content of that caliber are deleted. It’s hypocritical. Just create a seprate section with parental controls and let adults have the kind of apps that they want.

Posted by hardcle on February 22, 2010 at 10:15 PM (PDT)

5

While I agree that we’re on a real slippery slope allowing apps to be banned based on customer complaint, I think it’s sensationalist to state the number of banned apps in absolute numbers. This is a meaningless metric if you don’t also state the total number of apps in the store. A percentage would be much better. In these terms, the removed apps represent 3.5%, which really isn’t all that many. While some of these apps may not differ much from retained apps such as Sports Illustrated, there’s a good chance that many others were, in fact, far more objectionable and would have been relegated to a restricted adult content section if one had been available. I agree with an earlier poster that it’s time to create such a section.

Posted by David on February 23, 2010 at 8:39 AM (PDT)

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