Ban the beer: Microsoft gets an attack of the "app morals"

When Apple rolled out its App store one of the early popular places to visit  was a program that let the user "drink" a virtual beer thanks to the iPhone’s accelerometer.

More recently a host of other highly-popular apps have arrived, including those that some people might consider to be of questionable taste, (such as, for example, the standout app "Beautiful Boobs"). ITunes features many others too, just type “beautiful” into the search function on App store and see what happens.

Microsoft mobile developer marketing director for the Asia Pacific region, Chris Chin, says his company's policy whilst not necessarily family friendly, it is at least  “acceptable to the public”.

“These policies have evolved, they’re not quite 'family friendly', more just acceptable to the general public,” he says, citing the example of two games. Video Poker, which is on Marketplace but not necessarily family friendly although considered acceptable to the general public. As opposed to the mobile version of the controversial video game Grand Theft Auto - which is not found in Marketplace. “I don't know if that would be accepted but I think probably not,” Mr Chin says.

And what about the innocuous virtual iBeer app? Well. that fell foul of Microsoft's rules on any content deemed to encourage the "excessive" consumption of alcohol! As for anything remotely sexually tittilating, you won't find it anywhere on Microsoft Marketplace. According to the content guidelines, material considered “borderline” pornography is banned outright.

Chris Chin says, “On iTunes, soft porn ranks highly, Victoria’s Secret for example and others. There are some, which are very direct, such as Beautiful Boobs. You will never find them on Microsoft Marketplace, under the current content policies."

The trouble with this sort of moralising is of course that users, who after alll pay for services they wish to avail themselves of, are denied access to perfectly legal content because some faceless and unaccountable corporate puritan on a mission to impose censorship decides unilaterally to bar it.

Mr. Chin says the regime is based on Microsoft’s advertising content policy and has evolved based on feedback from customers, He comments, “This is very different from the iPhone world.