Dirty pictures on your mobile
By Gareth Powell
In Canada, Telus has began offering adult content to its cellphone customers. Available on a ‘pay-per-download’ basis it allows mug punters cellphone users to download pornographic photographs and videos and pay $3 to $4 a time.
Jim Johannsson, speaking for Telus (Jim, does your mother know what you do for a living?) said pornographic material was already widely available on mobile phones equipped with Internet browsers and ’so we’ve introduced — in a very responsible way — adult content that’s in behind proper age verification and that’s compliant with provincial standards and regulations.’
Jim, who appears to be quite expert on these matters said the company can track what its customers are searching for via Internet connections on their cellphones and noticed a definite interest in some of the Web’s more provocative sites.
He said, ‘We can’t see at an individual level, but we can tell on an aggregate level if they’re going to Google or Canoe, and we could see they were heading to adult-oriented Web sites. There is a segment of the population that is interested in that content.’
In a very responsible way.
Last month, the magazine Charged featured an article about the quiet promotion of adult content on cellphones, saying that Playboy TV has been marketing itself to telecommunications companies and that content specifically geared to the technology is already being produced.
There is no information as to how many of the phones used for downloading this material are used in the vibrate mode.
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Stumble It!
January 28th, 2007
shame shame telus! trying to cash in on this miserable business. i have a good mind in discontinuing my phone and internet service with telus, should you continue this.
January 28th, 2007
I live in a big enough city in western CANADA that I can tell telus to go to heaven if I want to and still have a telephone provider for my residence, a land line. Many others are unable to do so as service has been kept in the hands of, you guessed it , Telus and Telus only. No cable in rural Alberta.
I think this action is reprehensible.
By the way I like your style of writing Gareth
Powell.
An explanation of what exactly is a mug punter
will be welcome in exchange for my clarifying that yes, our national animal is a beaver, however when it is shot it’s not dead.
G*D bless our troops.
jw
January 29th, 2007
Okay all you pathetic holier-than-thous…Obviously both of you (telus customer and john weller) have internet access…do either of you consider removing yourself because of all the bad content your provider allows? Then why would you do it for a cell company. For the record, I’m not a big porn lover, but I’m not the prude you two make yourselves out to be. Reprehensible indeed! If you don’t like it, don’t look at it. But if you think switching to Rogers or Bell is going to keep the evil T&A from having a chance to get to your phone…you’re mistaken. Johannsen’s right. Try logging on to your browser, then try googling “boobs”…I guarantee you’re going to find godless porn on your cellphone faster than you can say “pass the kleenex”.
So…relax. Gareth, you act like no one’s ever thought of this before. What a pile of crap.
January 29th, 2007
You have got to be kidding, if you feel the need to watch porn, then fine, stay at home or sit in your little cubicle and watch it. Don’t sit next to me in Tim Hortons watching it on your phone! Jeeze, how desperate do you have to be to have portable porn. Get a life!
January 30th, 2007
Hold on… Another Telus Customer. You have called me a holier-than-thou and a prude. I
did not say people should be denied access to porn, something that really seemed to upset you.
I have a beef with the monopoly land line phone company in western Canada becoming a porn provider, just as I would if they become an discount stock broker or tried to sell me weight loss products.
I think they have chosen a poor vehicle to add to their services.
My beef is with the phone company not the porn industry.
Imagine a bank offering sex toys for opening new accounts. You are saying don’t deny me my sex toys go to another bank if you don’t like it.
I am saying the bank should not be in the sex toy business.
January 31st, 2007
So JW, you’re saying you don’t believe you should get internet services to your phone? I agree with your bank analogy…they shouldn’t offer sex toys. But, interestingly, if you’ve ever watched “Bowling for Columbine” you may be aware that one bank was offering guns for new accounts…but that’s a whole other topic. If my bank offers a variety of services within their realm…bank machines, internet banking, then spreads out to slightly more tenuous services, such as, say coffee in the lobby of the bank, then perhaps later, alcohol. All right, not the best services, and one I wouldn’t use. I’d then make a decision whether to stay with that bank. But if they all start offering it…and trust me, Bell and Rogers aren’t far behind with porn…then, I can complain, and I can refuse to use those services, but hell, SOMEone will!
Same with your cell, it’s had internet service for several years now, and I have a friend that constantly has porn images as his wallpaper…where did he get them? From free online porn from his handset. It’s been avaiable as long as internet has been available on cellphones. Again, I can complain…but SOMEone will always want it. I have kids, I don’t want them subjected to porn, nor do I want easy access to it…but it’s there, so we live with it and teach our kids about healthy attitudes. So, no, it doesn’t upset me that there isn’t enough access to porn. I’m saying it’s here and here to stay…and that the evil porn is the only thing focused on in the media. I didn’t see this much coverage when text messaging came in. Or when internet was first delivered to handsets. Or TV to your cell. Just porn. I got news for you…Telus is making huge cash off all of that as well. Bottom line, if big bad Telus offers services you don’t like, you as a bigger city user, can change providers, but, as I said, very soon, the point will be moot. $3.3 billion? Bell and Rogers will be on that like Elvis on a pork chop. And those smaller places that have no other choice? Don’t use the porn services…
My point is, I don’t see the big deal overall. JW, we’ll likely never agree. I know I didn’t win you over with this, and you won’t win me over either. And that’s the thing, we can have our individual opinions and make our own choices…and for that reason, I apologize for the prude and holier than thou comments.
January 31st, 2007
Another Telus Customer….thx for the reply…
‘we’ll likely never agree..we can have our individual opinions and make our own choices…and’.. (we’re cool)..
‘SOMEone will always want it. I have kids, I don’t want them subjected to porn, nor do I want easy access to it’….
oops…. I agree with you…
I don’t want easy access to it either.
jw
May 31st, 2007
Turning your cell phone into an entertainment machine just got easier. If Justin Timberlake can claim that he’s brought sexy back, then he’d be speechless at the advent of Sex on Cell TV. Bringing new meaning to the words “textual intercourse”; internet’s sexiest nudes are at your fingertips. Choose from a wide variety of preferences, even including gay and lesbian. High quality mobile movies are discretely sent to your cell or another device capable of video streaming upon your request. All I did was to point your mobile to http://sexoncell.com for adults only mobile fun.