Vodafone, which backed voluntary age checks and pornography content filtering in the UK, is urging its partners and competitors in other markets to do the same to ward off heavy handed regulation, according to Vodafone’s UK head of content services Al Russell, reports the Associated Press. Under the voluntary British rules, wireless networks bar adult services by default to new handsets, only lifting restrictions after the user provides proof that he or she is at least eighteen years old. Similar initiatives are underway in France and the US. The Australian govt has published a bill on the subject and Germany has imposed statutory rules. Tina Southall, head of Vodafone group’s content standards, said that the company is pressing rivals in countries such as Italy and Spain to use filtering. She said that in Spain, for example, explicit content is available without age verification. Southall added that outside the UK, Ireland and Sweden, Vodafone, which is present in 26 countries, only plans to use ‘opt-in’ filtering, which means that most handsets will have no access restrictions on pornography, online casinos and violent games out-of-the-box.
