Apple, Softbank Told to Beef Up iPhone Web Filtering
It may be Japan’s favorite smartphone, but Apple Inc.’s iPhone isn’t above the law. The Internet access law, that is.
A Japanese government panel said Monday it requested Apple’s Japan unit and its sole official distributor Softbank Corp. to improve the iPhone filtering system to prevent users under 18 year old to access unseemly sites.
The panel, comprising industry experts, deemed the current filtering service to be insufficient based on the edicts outlined in Internet safety law for young people implemented in April 2009.
The measure requires mobile phone operators to provide free filtering programs to limit access to websites not considered “wholesome.” The regulation targets social networking sites that do not apply their own internal monitoring systems in light of increasing incidents of cybercrime and offenses rooted in young people meeting suspicious characters online.