Cingular Filtering Porn From Wireless Web?

Atryn writes: "Cingular Wireless is reportedly blocking its customers from accessing 'objectionable material" via the Wireless Web.' The spokesman mentioned in the story disclaims knowledge of any blocking -- can any Cingular customers reading this confirm it?

Comments

Re:Well...

[henley]

See, this here is what I don't understand about the state of the telecoms world.

Your statement:

...you degrade everyone elses service as well, even if you are paying for your chunk...

See, my immediate and overriding thought is: I'm the CUSTOMER. I give you money, you give me bandwidth. How I use it is up to me. I've bought - BOUGHT - bandwidth from you, and now you're putting all these restrictions on me because you didn't do your sums correctly and you're making a loss from insufficient service provision.

The same applies in spades to all the cable modem, ADSL, and prepaid dialup plans we see getting post-hoc restrictions placed on them. To me, this looks like the service provider is an incompetent cretin that can't do their sums, work out how much capacity they've *bought*, how much they *need* to service their paying customers, and charge appropriately right off the bat.

Seriously, folks, is the corporate world so seriously screwed up that no-one is capable of this?

Re:pr0n!=bad for kids

[The Ape With No Name]

I just don't understand why Americans get into such a snit over sex and pornography; and yes, it's mostly Americans.

It's a moot point. American culture is what God intended. God hates panders, sodomites and pornographers. Therefore America cannot have porn. America is the end of history and is what is supposed to happen, therefore the rest of the world's mores are wrong and must be subjugated to American will.

I am being outrageous to make a point, but talking morality to Americans is like talking seal clubbing to a polar bear. They have it down, any other voice or idea is wrong. Just watch Fox News for a fair and balanced assessment of the subject. ;-p Anybody who says 'boo' to the opposite is a heathen devil sodomite who buggers little boys and votes for Al Gore.

General problem? DID THEY TEST OTHER SITES?!

[Seth Finkelstein]

The article states:

For example, the WAP address wap.sex.com can be viewed on cell phones using Verizon Wireless, Nextel Communications and Sprint PCS wireless Internet services. But the same URL entered into a Cingular Wireless device returns the message "your client is not allowed to access the requested object."

Now compare this old business-week article

But in France, Germany, and most of the rest of the Continent, the pickings are still slim. One trouble is that many phone companies are still in the beginning phases of WAP, and they block access to other service providers. This is known in the industry lingo as a ''closed garden.'' And for the time being, that garden has high fences. When I go to Germany with my French Web phone, I can only gain access to the Web through an international call to France, where I get a French weather report. This will change in the next year or two as phone companies adapt their Web services for roaming travelers.

And this USA today article:

Moreover, the speed hike only seemed to make a marginal difference over other wireless Web phones I've tried; I was still viewing text, and you must punch too many menu keys to access particular screens. And whenever I entered the Web address for usatoday.com, I received the following message: "WAP Gateway: Your client is not allowed to access the requested object."

What may have happened is that the sources tried to get to porn sites, didn't work, and then concluded that those sites were being banned in specific. But it could be a general compatibility problem affecting many sites.

Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)