Apple to censor iPad content regionally
Posted by Mauricio Longo in General, Publishing on Mar 21st, 2010 | 2 comments
A very interesting article by Jason Perlow on a ZDNet blog describes how Apple while allowing other content providers to directly sell and deliver content on the iPad, is imposing limits on what kind of content can be accessed on the device. Essentially content that is considered to contain nudity or erotic inclination is to be barred from access on iPads in the United States. It is not clear to me, at this time, if the censorship is really limited to the US.
This means that while you might have a Zinio subscription to, say Playboy, you will not be able to read it on your iPad. While I’m pretty certain that Apple won’t find any of my reading material to be questionable, it just feels weird for the device manufacturer to be meddling in the relationship between and end user and a software/service/content provider. Effectively, this means that you might own books or magazines that you can read on your computer, but that you cannot transfer to your iPad.
Not really being an expert in US law, I fail to see how Apple can be held liable for any material the user decides to download on his/her device. Borrowing on Eric Schimdt’s view on privacy (Google’s CEO): If there is any material on my iPad that I don’t want my children to have access to, then perhaps I should not have put it there.
*Image: Zinio, edited by iPad Watcher to impress the idea of censorship.
It is not just in law suits that Apple is worried about being held liable. They want to get the iPad in to american schools, which means they are worried about being held liable by American mothers and school boards. This are the boards and mothers who had “Catcher in the rye”, removed from high schools.
Cheers,
Grant
Hummm…. I guess you’ve got a point. It just seems quite absurd to me. I mean, what is the difference between an iPad and a regular computer? I guess, however that a company that is bundling 10 units in a single box to sell to educational institutions must really be worried about this.