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RIM Trying To Woo Customers With Porn, Gambling Apps?

Posted by timothy on from the what-kind-of-job? dept.

AZA43 writes "Everybody knows that BlackBerry-maker RIM is hurting these days. But is it hurting enough to try to attract new customers with the promise of porn and/or gambling apps? A new rating system added to RIM's BlackBerry App World store suggests that it just may be that desperate. The new 'Adult' rating covers, 'graphic sexual content, graphic nudity,' 'graphic violence,' and gambling apps 'as permitted by law.' And that suggests RIM will allow this kind of content into App World, in stark contrast to Apple's no-porn-on-the-iPhone stand."

4 of 157 comments (clear)

  1. I hope the gambling apps will be tested to be fair by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I hope the gambling apps will be tested to be fair and 100% legal in areas as permitted by law.

    Now why can we in the US have legal on line sports betting?

  2. Re:Uhhhh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Exactly. And then there is Apple.

    Steve Jobs: I don't want porn on the iPhone, but I'll fuck over anyone who gets in my way and sue the little guys into oblivion if they so much as think of getting out of line.

    Which is more obscene?

  3. Double standards by fiannaFailMan · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Slightly on topic, I always wondered why "sex and violence" are mentioned in the same breath so much. It's usually by people who have hang-ups about sex. They want to portray sex as a bad thing, so they always bracket it in with violence which is unquestionably bad. It's a bit like Sen McCarthy who tried to smear the Screen Actors' Guild by repeatedly asking "Have you ever been a member of the Communist Party or the Screen Actors' Guild", implying that the two were related. Or like clueless bookstore managers who group Sci Fi and Fantasy in together as if they're the same genre.

    However these people do more than consider sex and violence to be equally reprehensible, they actually consider sex to be worse than violence. Hence it's okay for a TV show to show someone getting their head sliced off and blood everywhere, but God forbid if anyone should get a glimpse of a nipple, vagina, penis, and other such parts of the human body which (practical though they may be) are evil! Murder? Fine. Lovemaking?! Think of the children!!

    I'm speaking of American TV of course. Other parts of the world have less Victorian attitudes to sex.

    --
    Drill baby drill - on Mars
  4. One Word . . . . by wirehead_rick · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Genius.

    It seems the power of porn and technology has been underestimated over and over.

    Porn drove the Video Cassette business and is probably responsible for VHS defeating the superior Beta format.

    It is also probably responsible for the huge early popularity of the Internet.

    Barring backlash from prudish regulators this move can't be underestimated . . .

    --
    -- Mean People Suck