European operators team to counter child access to porn

European carriers are joining forces in an effort to prevent children from accessing adult content on their mobile phones.
Vodafone Group plc, Deutsche Telekom AG and Orange Group SA were among 23 operators and content providers to sign on to develop a voluntary code of conduct, which was brokered by the European Commission. The guidelines address parental controls, classifying content, raising awareness and working to remove illegal content.
“The framework is setting ambitious principles for the EU-wide mobile industry,” said Kenneth Karlberg, president of TeliaSonera Mobility Services, another supporting operator. “By signing this framework, we increase our efforts to create a safer environment for children using mobile phones.”
The self-regulatory code is slated to be in effect by February of next year.
Mobile porn and other racy content have failed to find a substantial audience in the United States, where reputation-conscious carriers have refused to enter billing arrangements with content providers, forcing subscribers to use credit cards for the steamy stuff. But North American vendors such as Phonebox Entertainment and Brickhouse Mobile report gaining substantial traction in Europe, as well as in less-developed markets where fixed-line Internet access is more difficult to come by.
Recent reports indicate Canadian carriers are struggling to deal with wireless porn as well. A recent story from the Toronto Globe and Mail reports that Telus Corp. has received threats from more than 100 upset customers since it became Canada’s first wireless operator to offer adult content last month.
And the move comes on the heels of Monday’s news that children are increasingly being exposed to online porn, often by accidentally viewing adult sites while surfing the Web. Forty-two percent of Internet users between the ages of 10 and 17 said they’d seen online porn in the last 12 months, according to University of Hampshire researchers, and two-thirds of those said they had not sought out such images.