Filtration on the Wireless Horizon

Wireless gambling downloads will be addressed by new guidelines being drafted by the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association.

"No carrier or content provider, whether it be a casino operator or an adult entertainment site, wants their product to be associated with underage users or minors getting a hold of it. This will prevent that from happening, or at least keep those incidents to a minimum."

- Erin McGee
CTIA

The leading trade group hopes to have a draft version of its Wireless Carrier Content Classification Guidelines to present before the its board of directors later this quarter, with industry-wide implementation by the end of 2005.

The impetus of the guidelines is to create a filtering system for wireless devices that determines whether content is suitable for minors.

The draft isn't available for public consumption, but CTIA spokesperson Erin McGee said gambling downloads and adult-related content are two of the main areas of focus.

"Anything that can be downloaded to a wireless device will be filtered through the system," McGee said. "The main purpose of the guidelines is to ensure that adults are the only ones seeing or using content that is intended for adults."

At the heart of the guidelines will be an age verification system. How the system will be implemented hasn't been made public.

"We have a team working on how exactly the system will work," McGee explained. "They are exploring all of their options and will come up with a plan that suits carriers, content providers and consumers."

The Federal Communications Commission oversees the distribution of the wireless spectrum, which some say has made many wireless carriers with no system for dealing with adult content slow to jump on the bandwagon.

John Muleta, the chief of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau of the FCC, encouraged the CTIA earlier this year to come up with a industry-wide acceptable code of practice to avoid the necessitation of government intervention.

The push from the FCC came at a time when adult content providers like Playboy and Hustler, along with online gambling providers, were adding wireless platforms to their offerings. McGee said the new system should benefit those providers.

"No carrier or content provider, whether it be a casino operator or an adult entertainment site, wants their product to be associated with underage users or minors getting a hold of it," she said. "This will prevent that from happening, or at least keep those incidents to a minimum."

While gambling services are a concern, Mark Desautels the CTIA's point man in developing the new system, said the increasing amount of adult content accessible via wireless devices is the driving force behind getting a system in place soon.

"The adult side of things really kick-started it," Desautels said. "As indecency becomes an increasing point of interest on the part of policymakers, we really need to be proactive about it."

Desautels, the CTIA's vice president of wireless Internet development, said wireless carriers would implement the system voluntarily.

"We want to develop more sophisticated filtering tools," he said, "so that the ability to filter or to block certain types of content will be another part of the suite of services that carriers seek to provide."