The paranoid Parental Television Council (PTC) has launched a misguided campaign to eradicate porn from the Android Market.
Indeed, PTC’s national grassroots director Gavin McKiernan recently told Ars Technia that the organization would not rest on its ample laurels after pressuring Apple to remove adult-oriented content from its iTunes store.
“We plan to draw attention to other platforms, such as Android, or Verizon’s Vcast service, that aren’t really doing anything,” boasted an overconfident McKiernan.
“We definitely want to see progress from some of the other handheld devices.”
Phandroid’s Quentyn Kennemer responded to the PTC’s campaign by noting the activist group had successfully “scorched” Apple and was now setting its sights on Google’s Android.
“[The PTC] plans to pressure Google in similar fashion to how they did with Apple, asking them to pull down any sexually or violently objective content from the Market. Even if an app isn’t specifically X-rated, a questionable icon or screenshot in the app’s Market description would prove undesirable. They also want browsers to begin implementing parental control features much like many of our desktop counterparts do,” wrote Kennemer.
“It’ll be interesting to witness to what extent they’ll try to get these practices in place. I can’t imagine they’ll reasonably ask (or be able to force) all of the browser developers to implement these measures, and it definitely goes against Android’s ‘open’ atmosphere to – at the very least – ask a browser developer to pull their app down until they’ve updated it. It’s because of this that I think – without any government sanctioned or signed laws and ordinances – Google will turn a blind eye to the matter.”
