Racy Danish Tabloid May Sue Apple For App Rejection 319
the_arrow writes "In Denmark the tabloid newspaper Ekstra Bladet usually have scantily clad ladies on page 9. When making an iPad application, Apple of course rejected it because of that. However, Ekstra Bladet is not happy with that, and many sites report that Ekstra Bladet is thinking about taking Apple to European court for 'unfair censorship and anti-competitive behaviour.'"
Sue on what grounds? (Score:4, Interesting)
Now as much as I don't like Apple, I must say that Apple is free to enter and to not enter into contracts as they please.
If he doesn't like that then he can make his own phone and his own app store, or take his business to Apple's competitors, such as Android.
Re:It's a good point (Score:2, Interesting)
Back in the days of printed stuff, there were thousands of outlets. If one barred a certain publication, it was no big deal. The public could buy it in the other shop down the road.
With e-publishing, there's massive consolidation that changes this situation. Amazon or Apple blocking a publication is *not* analogous to a shop choosing not to stock a publication.
But Apple isn't blocking a publication. They can still make their publication available to iPad users; they just can't do it through the App Store.
The proper analogy? Suppose all the stores stopped putting the printed magazine in the front of the store. You'd still be able to buy the magazine from any store you wanted; you just would have to go to the back.
Re:Porn. (Score:4, Interesting)
Their raciness is kinda... Well, there is a saying that the beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Hope you are geting my drift here... In fact, I suspect that Apple's problem is probably not so much with the ladies on page 9, but the rather large collection of pages of "alternative services" advertised in the vicinity of page 9.
In any case, Jobs has no entitlement to enforce his puritanian beliefs on the European population. He is running a service, not a religious sect and this service is quickly approaching what in EU is considered "significan market power". That ends up with regulator attention. Getting it because of page 3, page 9, etc is plain silly.
Re:Porn. (Score:3, Interesting)
There are many Apps for that. You just have to jailbreak.
No, worse than that, there is an app for that if you are powerful or rich enough to sway Apple:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/playboy/id340150554?mt=8 [apple.com]
This is hypocrisy of the highest order from Apple, and they should learn that the hard way - I hope the company takes them to court and wins.
They should have an adult section for all this stuff (including playboy), and let it all in, along with those dangerous dictionaries and books including swearwords.
Re:Suing for what exactly? (Score:5, Interesting)
You are not completely off. We just don't make it into laws in Denmark, but when US TV shows started being shown on Danish TV, worried parents called in and complained because of the beeps over offensive words. They argued that censorship is wrong and harmfull to children.
Then again. The racist party recently suggested in parliament that we should add topless girls to the citizenship test, apparently thinking that would scare off muslims.
Yes, it is a HUGE deal (Score:3, Interesting)
You can see it with Wikileaks. They are under huge strain to keep their site up, at enormous cost. You can say what you want on the internet, as long as you can pay for the DDOS attack, the security and rape charges. Freedom of speech? Only if you can outshout the megacorp.
Some claim the TSA is hurting travel, but few are actually stopped from travelling and that only at great expense. A far more effective method of stopping people from travelling is to make it to expensive. A farmer who needs to spend every day tending his cow can't spend a week travelling the to capitol to make his voice heard. Only the rich farmer with plenty of staff can afford to do that. So the rich farmer is heard, the poor one is not. But EVERYONE is free to have their say in the capitol, nobody's fault that not everyone can afford to... just very handy.
Congress doesn't have to sign any laws to ban porn from the net. The public buys more and more devices closed of by public companies that do all the work for the christian puritans. How convenient and in return the government keeps the patent system in place that makes it impossible for a small competitor to get started without endless patent battles.
It is not just the web. Farmers have been sued for growing crops cross-polinated by accident with patented crops. Be a farmer as long as the mega-corp wants you to.
We are at fundemental risk to loose freedoms that we won't miss until it is to late.
Forbidden for Jews. Remember that one? Or "No blacks allowed"? Do you think every store that carried that sign was run by a racist biggotted asswipe? No, but if they didn't, then they wouldn't be supplied, couldn't get a loan etc etc. The power of the business to control society has grown enormously since then and we depend on it far more. Just think how depended you are on the bank system. How does a office clerk switch back to the barter system when the shit hits his fan?
The telephone companies were NOT allowed to censor the use of their telephone network. Hookers could NOT be prevented from getting a phone line. Why do we now accept that Apple does censor its service network? When does a service become a utiltiy? When do we not want our use of a public service to be restricted by a board director?
Apple and others are offering services that become so widespread they become common usage but still under control of a handfull of people with no public accountability. Your electricty manager dictates that you cannot use his electricity to watch porn. Turn of that computer NOW.