The Real Story Behind 'Super WiFi' And The Fight Over Spectrum; It's Not What You Read Yesterday

from the holy-crap dept

Early yesterday morning, I saw that Cecilia Kang at the Washington Post had a story up about the years-long fight for white spaces entitled: Tech, telecom giants take sides as FCC proposes large public WiFi networks. It struck me as odd, because so much in the article seemed... wrong or misleading. The main part about efforts to finally do something with the old TV spectrum isn't anything new at all. We first wrote about the FCC "proposing" this back in 2004 and have covered it a few times since. The FCC has been trying to use some of that TV spectrum for better, more efficient and more useful endeavors. It's been an ongoing battle that feels like it's never going to end. The short version is that TV broadcasters got a ton of free spectrum many years ago (just look at how giant chunks of the spectrum chart belong to TV broadcasters). A big part of the move to digital TV was to force broadcasters to give up a chunk of wasted, valuable spectrum that can be turned into (among other things) some useful wireless services. TV broadcasters hate this and have been fighting it in a variety of ways.

The latest version of this plan is for the FCC to do a multi-part, multi-directional "auction" process for a chunk of spectrum currently held by the broadcasters. Part of that auction would be to offer incentives to broadcasters to cough up the spectrum. And then part of it would be auctioning off whatever spectrum broadcasters agree to dump. Finally, part of it would also include designating some portion of the spectrum for unlicensed uses.

All of this is ancient history. Really ancient history. So why is the Washington Post suddenly covering this? From the article, you'd be forgiven for thinking that this is all new and that the FCC has plans for some amazing free "super WiFi." Except that's not true. At all. Well, except the part that caught most people's attention: that this would be about offering "free internet service" across the country. That part is new. And that's because it's not true. You still need backhaul and service. It's just about freeing up the spectrum so that it can be used to provide service. The FCC isn't suddenly planning to get into the broadband service ISP business. Nor could they.

Think of it this way: just because WiFi exists, it does not mean that everyone suddenly has free internet access if they buy a WiFi router at their local Best Buy. Nope. They have to connect that to a service. Same thing with anything being talked about here. More spectrum may be freed up for "open" use -- meaning more things like WiFi -- but there will still be service providers offering services over it in some form or another. Could some of them offer "free" service? Possibly. Just like you might get "free" internet access from your neighbor with open WiFi, who pays for his connection. But that's not what anyone's really talking about.

However, if you could be forgiven for thinking that this was new and amazing (and true), I don't think the same forgiveness should be given to parts of the press who ate this story up. Business Insider (apparently, without any benefit from any actual "insider") wrote a breathless piece about telcos trying to stop the government from offering super WiFi. Except... no. Others, who should have known better yet still wrote about it, included Popular Science (awful) and Mashable.

Moving to the mainstream, newswire UPI picked up the story, taking some comments from FCC boss, Julius Genachowski, out of context. He was quoted in the Post piece as saying "Freeing up unlicensed spectrum is a vibrantly free-market approach that offers low barriers to entry to innovators developing the technologies of the future and benefits consumers." But the confusion is his use of "free." He's not talking "free service" but freeing the spectrum so that anyone can offer services, like WiFi, over it without having to buy a license.

Others similarly jumped on the story without understanding it at all. The Daily Caller talked about it as if it was some new plan, as did Fox. Similarly, you had ThinkProgress and Salon chiming in on the other side of the political spectrum.

Thankfully, some spoke up in response, but even then there's still some head-scratching about this whole thing.

Karl Bode, over at DSLReports, quickly questioned Kang about the whole story, and she claimed that the story was "motivated by the new comments to the FCC" from various players both in support and in opposition of the latest spectrum auction concerning "white spaces." But... again, the auction has been planned for a while -- and it's not really about "white spaces" but adding existing "white space rules" to some of the newly available spectrum (more below). There's really nothing new here, other than some comment filings about how this auction should go down, which add little to the discussion beyond what's been said already. It's the same players saying the same thing, but just in direct reference to the upcoming spectrum auction.

Jerry Brito, over at the Tech Liberation Front, digs into the details and suggests that this whole thing involves something of a comedy of errors, with massive confusion not just over what's been going on with TV white spaces, or the new comments, or the upcoming spectrum auction... but also with a completely different band of spectrum that Genachowski spoke about last month at CES.

Parsing Kang's story a little bit more since posting this, I've become even more confused. In her tweet she says she's talking about the white spaces in the incentive auction NPRM, but those couldn't possibly be used for a nationwide wireless network since they'd be low-power Part 15 type bands. Also, unlicensed in the 600 MHz guard bands are not Chairman Genachowski's design, they were allowed by Congress when they gave the FCC auction authority. So what is Kang referring to? Most likely it is the Chairman's initiative, announced at CES earlier this month, to clear 195 MHZ in the 5 GHz band to improve Wi-Fi.... Bottom line, I think Kang conflated two separate proceedings into one big non-story that made it past the Washington Post's editors all the way to the top left corner of the front page. I hope there is a correction tomorrow.

While this actually makes some sense, I don't think that's correct either. After all, the FCC's own summary of the upcoming incentive auctions makes it clear that it views "super WiFi" as a possible outcome from the television white spaces being unlicensed:

The FCC recently developed provisions for unlicensed devices to operate on TV channels that are not used at any given locations, called "white spaces." Interference is avoided by controlling access to the spectrum through a database of protected service areas. The white spaces in the TV spectrum offer an opportunity for a new generation of products such as Super Wi-Fi and wireless broadband services for communities, particularly in rural areas. In the incentive auction proceeding, the FCC proposes to make a substantial amount of additional spectrum available for unlicensed uses. First, the Commission proposes to continue allowing the operation of white space devices in the broadcast television spectrum in the newly repacked band. In addition, the FCC proposes to make the guard bands in the new band plan available for unlicensed use. Under the plan discussed above, the two proposed guard bands would be 6 MHz wide and could be larger when accounting for the addition of "remainder spectrum" resulting from the uneven division of 6 MHz wide television channels into 5 MHz blocks. Furthermore, the FCC proposes allowing unlicensed devices to operate for the first time on Channel 37 by establishing appropriate protections for existing operations in the white space database. Taken together, the FCC's proposals will enable a substantial amount of spectrum use by unlicensed devices. A significant portion of this spectrum will be available on a nationwide basis, which is important because there currently is little or no white space in the TV bands in parts of many major markets. In making these proposals, the FCC seeks to promote greater innovation in new products and services, including increased access for wireless broadband services across the country.

The confusion, I believe, is that the FCC is talking about two different types of spectrum in the above quote, though if you're not reading carefully, you might think that it's just about the spectrum they plan to be auctioning off. That's not the case. Much of the above is actually talking about the existing TV white space spectrum that has been fought over (which is generally in the 700 MHz realm -- 698 to 806 MHz). The new spectrum auction is in the 600 MHz block (572 to 698 MHz), but as part of the discussion on this new auction, the FCC is reminding people that (a) the existing TV white spaces will remain available for unlicensed use and (b) that the new auctions should, in theory, add additional open spectrum to them (under the same rules), specifically looking at freeing up channel 37 (608 to 614 MHz) (once called "the last empty channel"), as well as portions of the so-called "guard bands" between licensed spectrum chunks, that they would like to "add" to the existing white space rules, which are supposed to minimize (or eliminate) interference problems in the white space.

The "comments" that were given by various players are really just about how the auction should run, with some discussing how much space should be allocated to such unlicensed uses. In particular, many weighed in on how much should be allocated to the "guard bands" and whether they should be attached to existing TV white space rules for interference-avoiding open spectrum. Kevin Drum, over at Mother Jones, actually has one of the better explanations for the complexities of the upcoming auctions, and the issue of guard bands:

In short, because there's that first reverse auction in which broadcasters are supposed to be incentivized to cough up existing spectrum (again, which taxpayers gave them for free...), it's not entirely clear how much 600 MHz spectrum will be available to be auctioned off to anyone. Basically, they have these two chunks, starting at 608 MHz and counting down, and another at 698 MHz and counting down -- and the total amount available will depend on how much the broadcasters agree to cough up in the reverse auction. At the "bottom" of that range, the FCC has proposed a 6 MHz guard band for each of these chunks, and making much of that subject to the existing white space rules and hopefully allowing something useful to be done with that unlicensed spectrum, especially if it's combined with other available white space. The "guard bands" are called that, as they're supposed to "guard" between interference between licensed spectrum on either side, though there's a fair bit of debate over how much space is really needed to "guard" such interference. That argument leads to some suggesting that the FCC is offering up too much for the guard bands in an effort to get more unlicensed spectrum on the market.

The fight is over how much spectrum is used for unlicensed and how much for licensed. The telcos, like AT&T, want to limit the unlicensed spectrum, while internet companies, like Google, want as much of it as possible. Similarly, there are some in Congress who are against offering very much (if any) unlicensed spectrum, taking the really dumb short term view that any unlicensed spectrum (even if it leads to tax-creating innovations) is leaving money on the table, since telcos are expected to spend billions buying up any licensed spectrum available. Again, though, that's the same old story.

In short: there's an ongoing fight about how much spectrum in newly auctioned 600 MHz spectrum will be "unlicensed," which is important for some cool things. But, that's got little to do with a magic "free" nationwide internet service. This is important stuff, but the reporting by many folks has been abysmal.

Filed Under: fcc, journalism, licensed, reporting, spectrum, super wifi, unlicensed, white spaces, wireless

Nokia Releases 3D Printing Kit For Anyone To Print Their Own Phone Cases

from the smart-move dept

While Nokia has quickly become an afterthought in the high-end phone world after being such a dominant player for so long, it's been trying to make a comeback lately. My friend Tom recently sent over an interesting move that Nokia made: releasing its own 3D printing kit for anyone who wants to print cases for their flagship Lumia 820, that goes beyond merely the printing templates:

...we are going to release 3D templates, case specs, recommended materials and best practices—everything someone versed in 3D printing needs to print their own custom Lumia 820 case.

It's still very early in the whole 3D printing world, so this may seem rather simple, but it's neat to see companies starting to figure out how to make use of these kinds of new technologies in a positive way, rather than ignoring them or (worse) actively fighting them. In fact, it's clear that Nokia is thinking beyond just this:

In the future, I envision wildly more modular and customizable phones. Perhaps in addition to our own beautifully-designed phones, we could sell some kind of phone template, and entrepreneurs the world over could build a local business on building phones precisely tailored to the needs of his or her local community. You want a waterproof, glow-in-the-dark phone with a bottle-opener and a solar charger? Someone can build it for you—or you can print it yourself!



Again, small steps, but it's through these kinds of learning experiences that we often see something bigger emerge.

Filed Under: 3d printing, customizable
Companies: nokia

Phone No One Uses Will No Longer Carry Game No One Plays

from the but-what-about-those-angry-birds dept

New versions of the BlackBerry mobile device won’t come equipped with BrickBreaker, a simple game that for years was installed on every BlackBerry and at its peak developed a cult following among traders and Wall Street executives. Richard S. Fuld, the former Lehman Brothers chief executive, became so addicted that in 2006 he had his technology department remove the game from his device in an effort to break his habit. Nick Manning, a spokesman for BlackBerry, on Wednesday confirmed the company’s decision to remove the game from new devices. [Dealbook]

Other posts from Dealbreaker:

• Super Bowl XLVII: Everybody Wins
• Twinkies Predictably Worth Almost As Much As Hostess Itself
• Informant's Assistance On Insider Trading Case Slightly Undone By Telling “Series” Of Lies To Government

Filed Under: blackberry, brickbreaker, games, phones, wall street
Companies: blackberry, rim

Ericsson Sells 2,185 Mobile Tech Patents To Newly Minted Troll, Unwired Planet

from the 2185-EXPLOITABLES!-NIB!-BID-NOW!!! dept

Well, if it wasn't clear before, it's certainly official now. Unwired Planet (formerly Openwave), a former innovator in the WAP browser field, decided back in April that it was no longer interested in competing in the marketplace. Instead, it set the dials to "troll" and announced a new "corporate strategy," one that would punish actual innovators for innovating. CEO Mike Mulica announced a "multi-pronged strategy to realize the value of [Unwired Planet's] unique patent portfolio."

Now, an aider and abettor has thrown Unwired Planet 2,185 additional trolling devices.

Last week, Unwired Planet, a patent licensing company that once upon a time was an Internet services company called Openwave, announced a deal to acquire a portfolio of 2,185 U.S. and international patents and patents pending from Ericsson.

The company said the deal “significantly broaden[s] Unwired Planet’s Mobile Internet-focused portfolio,” including 753 U.S. issued patents related to 2G, 3G and LTE technologies. Ericsson will also contribute 100 additional patent annually to Unwired Planet from 2014 through 2018. Terms call for Unwired Planet to compensate Ericsson with certain ongoing rights in future revenues generated from the enlarged patent portfolio. Unwired Planet will also grant Ericsson a license to the Company’s enlarged patent portfolio.

In other words, Ericsson will profit from any litigation or settlements Unwired Planet manages to extract from tech companies. Pretty good money, if you don't mind being part of the problem. Mulica was on hand again to put lipstick on the troll-pig with plenty of words that dance around the shakedown-and-sue "business model" Unwired is calling a "corporate strategy" these days.

Unwired Planet CEO Mike Mulica said in a statement that his company looks forward to “leveraging a strong, multi-dimensional patent portfolio and furthering discussions with key industry players who are interested in licensing these inventions to protect and further build their product strategies.”

Well, just replace "leveraging" with "exploiting" and "furthering discussions" with "shakedown letters" and "interested in" with "forced to" and we've got ourselves a sentence! For that matter, let's replace "protect and further build" with "tentatively move forward in a highly litigious atmosphere, infested with tapeworms sporting UP/E logos."

The costs inflicted by the new hybrid tapeworm will, of course, be passed on to the end users in the form of increased costs, fewer innovations and East Texan accents. Ericsson will receive, in exchange for patents covering a broad swath of "telecommunications infrastructure" (and part of its soul reputation), 20% of the first $100 million, increasing to 70% should Unwired be able to hit the $500 million mark. Unwired has already fired an opening salvo in the direction of Apple and Google, so the sky's the theoretical limit.

In addition, America itself will be blessed with several million more reasons for newly minted lawyers to embrace the patent field, which despite the best (but still very poorly done) efforts of the US government, still offers a good chance to make big money by doing little more than spamming successful companies with threatening letters. 

Filed Under: mobile, patents, wireless
Companies: ericsson, unwired planet

Google Decides Smartphone Market Share Is More Important Than Net Neutrality

from the dangerous-precedents dept

As a recent post noted, net neutrality is under threat in France, with ISPs like Free asking Google to pay extra for delivery of its traffic. According to this post on the Forbes Web site, Google has already agreed to pay the French telecoms company Orange in precisely this way. As well as damaging the whole principle of net neutrality, something that Google has been championing for many years, this would seem to be a pretty bad business decision. After all, if Orange is now getting paid to carry Google's traffic, why shouldn't every other telecom company out there also receive money for delivering Google's services?

It turns out that there are some very specific reasons why Google might have taken this surprising step, as Forbes explains:

Orange have implied their strong market position in Africa provided them sufficient leverage in the discussions with Google.

The African market is currently making the switch from feature phones with limited data access, to low-cost smartphones that provide far greater access to the internet and web services. Low-cost smartphones that are predominantly powered by Android. Google wants the emerging market to be running their OS so they can effectively monetize the continent. What they don't want is another platform becoming established, such as Nokia's low-cost Windows Phones or the upcoming Blackberry 10 devices.

This is really about the African market, then. As the analysis above notes, Google wants Android to become established there as successfully as it has elsewhere in the world. If it had refused to do a deal with Orange, which is apparently a major player in this region, there was a danger that Nokia or RIM could have taken advantage of the situation. Even though the payment is nominally about Net traffic, it's probably really about Google keeping a dominant telecom company sweet.

In most other parts of the world, Android is already established as the leading smartphone platform, so Google won't need to make similar deals. That doesn't mean that telecoms and ISPs won't demand them, but their bargaining position will generally be much weaker than Orange's. Google will probably be able to refuse without risking too much, secure in the knowledge that Internet users won't be best pleased with their ISPs if they can't access Gmail, or YouTube becomes unbearably laggy.

But even if the Orange deal is a special case, it's still bad news for the Internet. Google has clearly signaled that net neutrality is not sacrosanct, and that it is quite prepared to abandon it when necessary.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

Filed Under: africa, france, net neutrality, wireless
Companies: google

How Unlocking Your Phone May Now Be A Crime: $500,000 Fines And 5 Years In Prison For First Offense

from the broken-copyright-laws dept

Last week, we warned about the impending deadline if you wanted to unlock your phone "legally." That's because the Librarian of Congress took away the DMCA anti-circumvention exemption that allowed phone unlocking. If you're wondering why we even have the Librarian of Congress deciding such things, that's a much longer discussion. In the meantime, though, Derek Khanna has written an interesting piece of at The Atlantic, in which he points out that, not only is it illegal now to unlock your phone, it's possibly criminal thanks to some broad and ridiculous readings of today's copyright law. Until now, most people had been regarding this as purely a civil matter -- and one where it seemed (mostly) unlikely that companies would take too many people to court.

However, given how we've seen prosecutorial overreach on a variety of cases lately, including in the copyright realm, Khanna presents compelling evidence that unlocking a phone could trigger criminal charges. Specifically, he points to 17 USC 1204, which establishes what qualifies for criminal offenses for circumventing technical protection measures:

Any person who violates section 1201 or 1202 willfully and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain...

In case you don't know, 1201 is the anti-circumvention part of the DMCA/Copyright Act.

Now, I can already hear people complaining that unlocking your phone for personal use isn't "willfully and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain." Except, well, it is. Khanna explains how easy it would be for a prosecutor on a mission to "send a message" to make this argument:

Given copyright laws broad interpretation by the courts, it could be argued that merely unlocking your own smartphone takes a device of one value and converts it into a device of double that value (the resale market for unlocked phones is significantly higher) and therefore unlocking is inherently providing a commercial advantage or a private financial gain - even if the gain hasn't been realized. In other words, unlocking doubles or triples the resale value of your own device and replaces the need to procure the unlocked device from the carrier at steep costs, which may be by definition a private financial gain. Alternatively, one can argue that a customer buying a cheaper version of a product, the locked version vs. the unlocked version, and then unlocking it themselves in violation of the DMCA, is denying the provider of revenue which also qualifies. There are several cases that have established similar precedents where stealing coaxial cable for personal use has been held to be for "purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain." (See Cablevision Sys. New York City Corp. v. Lokshin, 980 F. Supp. 107, 109 (E.D.N.Y. 1997)); (Cablevision Sys. Dev. Co. v. Cherrywood Pizza, 133 Misc. 2d 879, 881, 508 N.Y.S.2d 382, 383 (Sup. Ct. 1986)).

Oh, so given all that, what kind of punishment could you get? It's a lot worse than the statutory maximum of $150,000 for willful infringement of a copyright work. No, now that we're talking circumvention and criminal penalties, a single offense can basically destroy your life:

(1) shall be fined not more than $500,000 or imprisoned for not more than 5 years, or both, for the first offense; and

(2) shall be fined not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned for not more than 10 years, or both, for any subsequent offense.

Khanna is right that it's unlikely that a prosecutor would choose to go this far, but just the fact that it's possible is absurd:

If people see this and respond, well no one is really going to get those types of penalties, my response is: Why is that acceptable? While people's worst fears may be a bit unfounded, why do we accept a system where we allow such discretionary authority? If you or your child were arrested for this, would it comfort you to know that the prosecutor and judge could technically throw the book at you? Would you relax assuming that they probably wouldn't make an example out of you or your kid? When as a society did we learn to accept the federal government having such Orwellian power?

And, while I doubt that prosecutors would straight up charge someone for merely unlocking their phone, if they're looking to pile on (or threaten to pile on) more charges against some "hacker" for a variety of other actions, it's not hard to see scenarios where this would be lumped in with other threats or charges.

Filed Under: anti-circumvention, copyright law, criminal law, dmca, unlocking

Verizon Charging You More, As Bandwidth Costs Them Less

from the caps-and-pap dept

As we just recently discussed, broadband providers appear to finally be willing to give up their pretend need for data caps due to the pretend costs of delivering service. The story they told essentially was that, without data caps, congestion would clog the interwebz tubes and that laying bigger tubes was way too costly. Perhaps noteably, this rarely resulted in actual hard caps on data, but rather provided a convenient excuse to charge more for more data service, regardless of the effect or cost of delivering that service.

Now Verizon's 4G LTE money-making machine is giving us a glimpse into exactly how profitable providing bandwidth is becoming as the cost for delivering service drops and prices to consumers go up.

Verizon (VZ) posted a pretty impressive holiday quarter (one-time charges aside) with a good outlook on Tuesday, and the company’s share price rose as a result. There were also plenty of interesting takeaways from the carrier’s earnings call, but The New York Times’ Brian X. Chen zeroed in on one item of particular interest. Verizon launched new “Share Everything” plans last summer that make smartphone data more expensive for many users. The best thing about these plans for investors — and, not coincidentally, the worst thing about the plans for subscribers — is that Verizon is now making more money off of smartphone data as costs associated with transmitted that data are falling.

It really doesn't get much simpler than that. The 4G LTE network is efficient to the point that delivering the service costs less than the 3G network, yet the price to consumers is going up. To be clear, the problem here isn't that Verizon is making money. Rather, the problem is that this comes from the same company that built a business model around low caps and high overage costs while also claiming that caps were the sign of a "competitive market." For those of you playing along at home, it's precisely because of a lack of competition that Verizon can at once have its costs drop while raising prices on its services. Were there more competition, someone new would compete on price or value of service. As it stands, Verizon can use their faster service and low caps to further the aforementioned business model.

As an added bonus, Chen noted that Verizon’s faster data networks also cause users to eat through their data allowances more quickly. This eventually prompts them to buy more expensive plans with higher data caps, which of course net Verizon even more cash.

As a Verizon customer myself, these kinds of signs that there isn't enough competition for my dollar are quite frustrating. On top of that, the model is specifically designed to provide a great service and then drop a bunch of obstacles in its path... it's maddening.

Filed Under: broadband, charges, costs, data caps, metered broadband, pricing
Companies: verizon

Just Two More Days To Unlock Your Phone, Then You'll Be Breaking The Law

from the ridiculous dept

We've always had our concerns about the ridiculous DMCA "exemptions" process concerning circumvention of digital locks. If you don't know, the DMCA has a strict anti-circumvention rule that says breaking digital locks, such as DRM, is itself a violation of copyright law, even if the purpose of the lock-breaking does not infringe on anyone's copyright. As a sort of "pressure valve" every three years, people can "apply" to the Librarian of Congress for exemptions to that rule. This, of course, is completely ridiculous and backwards. We need to apply, once every three years, to use legally purchased products the way we want to without it being considered illegal? That's crazy. But it's the way things are set up, and it can lead to some bizarre scenarios. As we explained last year when the latest round of exemptions was announced, the Librarian of Congress took away the exemption for unlocking your phone... but provided a 90 day window.

That window ends on Sunday. In other words, unlocking your phone on Saturday: legal. Unlocking your phone on Sunday: you probably just broke the law. As the EFF properly notes, this is not what copyright law is supposed to be about:

"Arguably, locking phone users into one carrier is not at all what the DMCA was meant to do. It's up to the courts to decide."

I don't even think there's anything "arguable" about it. Copyright law has no business being involved in deciding whether or not my phone can be unlocked. It's silly that this is an issue. It's silly that there needed to be an exemption in the first place. And it's silly that this exemption is being taken away. It's for things like this that people lose respect for copyright law.

Filed Under: anti-circumvention, copyright, digital locks, dmca, drm, exceptions, phone locks, phone unlocking

iNanny: Apple Takes Down Popular Photo Apps Because They Made Searching For Nude Photos 'Too Easy'

from the paying-for-the-privilege-of-being-treated-like-a-child dept

We've written here before about Apple's autocratic control of its app store, which has resulted in many questionable removals. To date, Apple has blocked a dictionary (because it contained profanity), a Project Gutenberg scan of The Kama Sutra (ancient sexytime), any app that connects to Dropbox (because... Dropbox?), an educational game based on the current war in Syria (too topical?), a DUI checkpoint location app (political pressure), an app that allowed a mute 4-year-old girl to communicate with her parents (patents!), as well as many apps that were potentially competitive with its home-grown software.

Now, Apple has pulled apps related to the 500px photography network, citing the "easy" availability of nude photos.

Apple has pulled the apps from photography network 500px from its App Store because, after 16 months of use, their clearly marked nude photo galleries suddenly became intolerable.

In addition for 500px's own app, the third-party 500px app ISO500, whose parent company 500px acquired because of ISO500's excellent integration, has also received notice that its app will be removed from the App Store shortly - for the same reason.

500px was notified by Apple that its software update made it "too easy" to find nude images via the integrated search. Initially, Apple said the app wouldn't be pulled but reverted to an earlier version. An hour later, it apparently decided that potentially searchable nudes was too much of a threat to its walled ecosystem and yanked the apps entirely. This seems a little harsh, considering the precautions taken by the software.

Just as it has the whole time, the app defaults to a Safe Search mode that excludes nudity, and you have to log in on the desktop version to change that.

Apple has responded to the strange and sudden removal of 500px's software with the following statement:

The app was removed from the App Store for featuring pornographic images and material, a clear violation of our guidelines. We also received customer complaints about possible child pornography. We've asked the developer to put safeguards in place to prevent pornographic images and material in their app.

Child pornography accusations notwithstanding (back to that in a moment), Apple's stance on nudity (or "pornography," as it prefers to term it) in its "curated" apps is ridiculous. 500px took steps to prevent just anybody from picking up the app and loading up on explicit images. But whether or not 500px made access to explicit images easier ultimately makes no difference. If it's nudity Apple wants to be rid of, it's going to need to shut down a whole lot of software.

But here's the thing: Flipboard integrates completely with 500px as well. Everything you can do on 500px's app, you can do on Flipboard. Is Apple going to pull Flipboard as well? What about Tumblr, Instagram and all browsers - including Apple's own Safari? You can get to nude images with them pretty easily, too.

And the child pornography concerns? 500px claims it was never informed about any alleged child porn -- not by Apple and not by its users.

Tchebotarev has responded to us, saying that 500px was not told about the child pornography complaints and that Apple had not mentioned any issues around nudity until a phone call yesterday. "We've never ever, since the beginning of the company, received a single complaint about child pornography. If something like that ever happened, it would be reported right away to enforcement agencies."

Apple is prone to overreaction when apps are criticized or accused of possible moral/legal issues (see opening paragraph). Rather than contact 500px and have them investigate the offending account(s)/images, it simply dumped the app. On top of that, it didn't even bother to tell the involved parties about this accusation. Apparently, developers should just find articles involving their embattled software and hit F5 until Apple's official explanation is appended to the post.

Yes, child pornography is serious and should be dealt with expediently, but knocking apps out of the market without verified claims is ridiculous. As was pointed out, if a user wants to access child porn, he's got plenty of options, all contained within Apple's approved apps, including its own software. It's a shoot-first approach that does a lot of damage to its relationships with its developers -- but the collateral damage is apparently acceptable.

Apple's arbitrary decisions on apps like this and the ones listed above make it harder and harder to respect its position as a self-appointed moral guardian of all things i-related. Its lack of communication and questionable tactics seem to be the unfortunate byproduct of its position as the most desirable market.

Personally, I'm glad I have an Android. As an adult, I prefer to be given the options befitting an adult, rather than have my software choices limited by a corporation's belief that I shouldn't be trusted with anything "mature" on the off chance that a child might access it. The Android marketplace is full of questionable apps, malware and outright sleaze, but at least it assumes I can make my own decisions on what sort of content I want to view or interact with, rather than pre-screen everything like a helicopter parent rummaging through the Halloween "take," looking for anything with loose wrappers or heavily processed sugars.

Filed Under: app store, pornography, walled garden
Companies: 500px, apple