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Cellphone Entertainment, Yes, but Carriers Shy From X-Rated
With new functions to send e-mail, take pictures and listen to music, the mobile phone has turned into a portable minicomputer. But the operators of phone networks are resisting new services that proved very popular on the old personal computer: pornography and violent video games, reports The New York Times. Along with ring tones and screen savers, racy pictures and violent games are now part of that commercial equation. In Europe and Asia, users of mobile phones can readily download erotic images and even explicit videos to be watched on the tiny screens. A growing number of content providers are adapting steamy images and video for use on mobile phones. But not all US carriers are going for it. Cingular Wireless said earlier this month that it would stop offering customers the option of downloading images of pornography-film stars, a service that had been offered by AT&T Wireless "We're not going to offer adult content; we're not going to offer ultraviolent games," said Mark Siegel, a spokesman for Cingular. "That is not compatible with the Cingular brand." Such decisions show the fine line that the carriers are trying to walk. Many, for example, already offer downloadable images of bikini-clad models from magazines like Sports Illustrated and Maxim. But some critics are raising concerns that the phone operators are acting as content gatekeepers. Whether even more of this muted content could catch on the United States depends first on whether the carriers decide to make it available. Roger Entner, a telecommunications industry analyst with the Yankee Group, a market research firm, said he believed that carriers were reacting to the political climate. "One of the biggest fears of the wireless carriers is that - with a more conservative United States - that the Southern Baptist conference or some such group would boycott them," he said." |
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