May I See Your Mobile Porn License, Please?

It is interesting. Just because porn has been so successful on every other form of media known to man does not lead me to believe that it will ever really take off on mobile devices.

I mean seriously, can you imagine the guy next to you browsing through ‘Donkeys, Dames and Darts’ as he heads to work on the bus? It just seems a little too unlikely to me personally.

Pornography is often seen as leading the way for new technologies. It was the original “killer app” for the video rental business, and has pushed forward and pioneered many internet offerings as well from payment processes online to streaming video. Still, however, many operators are continuing their love-hate affair with porn. They want it to drive user adoption and to boost data revenue, but don’t want to be associated with the porn business at all.

Of course, a big part of this problem is self-inflicted. If the operators didn’t control the gates so strictly, they wouldn’t have this problem at all. These days, no one blames ISPs for the fact that there is porn on the Internet. They realize that the ISPs have nothing to do with it — they are just providing the connection. However, with mobile operators acting as gatekeepers, they are caught in a tricky situation.

Down in Australia, operators are being told that they will soon need to block out mobile porn from anyone under the age of 19. In order to do this, users will need to present proof-of-age with a written request to access pornographic content. While there are still some who wonder whether or not there really is that much demand for mobile porn, this should be sure to kill off much of the remaining demand. How many people want to go through the process of applying for such a “porn license?”