Monday, July 7, 2003
Handango Filters Adult Software
Posted by Jason Dunn in "THOUGHT" @ 07:00 AM
Seeing the linked infoSync article above reminded me of this issue. I wanted to give my very public, and very supportive, endorsement of Handango's recent decision to filter out all adult software from their software catalog.
My take on it is this: I personally have no issues with adult software being sold on a site (business is business). If someone wants this type of software, they should have the freedom to get it like any other software. But I only think it should be on sites if that software never comes up in a search result, that software never appears on the front page of that site, and when you go into an adult-only category, you're required to indicate your age by agreeing to an online EULA. None of the sites have ever done that though - they mix in strip poker with freecell games, and few people seemed to think this was a big deal.
What if your local video store mixed adult movies in with kids videos? No one would stand for it, yet for years that's exactly what the online software vendors have done. I emailed Handango several weeks ago about this, only to find out that they were already working on it! Cool. PocketGear has created an adult category, so that's a start, but they still have strip poker banners on their home page and adult titles still appear on their lists of new applications and best selling applications. Keep going PocketGear!
My take on it is this: I personally have no issues with adult software being sold on a site (business is business). If someone wants this type of software, they should have the freedom to get it like any other software. But I only think it should be on sites if that software never comes up in a search result, that software never appears on the front page of that site, and when you go into an adult-only category, you're required to indicate your age by agreeing to an online EULA. None of the sites have ever done that though - they mix in strip poker with freecell games, and few people seemed to think this was a big deal.
What if your local video store mixed adult movies in with kids videos? No one would stand for it, yet for years that's exactly what the online software vendors have done. I emailed Handango several weeks ago about this, only to find out that they were already working on it! Cool. PocketGear has created an adult category, so that's a start, but they still have strip poker banners on their home page and adult titles still appear on their lists of new applications and best selling applications. Keep going PocketGear!
