Cell Porn

Entrepreneurs and possibly major wireless carriers in the United States are looking for ways to make porno _graphy available on cell phones wherever reception is available. If they are successful, and analysts estimate they will be—to the tune of $196 million by 2009—the world of smut will literally follow you wherever you go.

With commercial carriers already providing customers with the hardware and communications technology to view Web-based video on full-color screens, the only obstacles for American carriers to join the global billion-dollar mobile phone pornography industry are moral—and most of those have already crumbled.

Telecommunications providers such as Cingular and Verizon are reluctant to be viewed as facilitators of explicit material in part due to advocacy groups such as the National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families, which is one group that has voiced concern over the issue. According to a Pew study, almost half of teens own cell phones and a quarter use them to access the Web. The Wall Street Journal reported that websites intended for cell phones are even harder to filter than regular Internet pages (May 25, 2006). In fact, that is one of the appeals cell phones offer; with their portability comes a feeling of privacy.

Pornography was partially responsible for the popularity explosion of the Internet in the 1990s, when, in 1997 for example, 50 percent of Web searches were for pornography. The wireless pornographic market will likely be equally lucrative. With the teenage demographic as one of the largest consumers of pornography, you may want to do more for your child than just monitor excessive talk time.