Apple Patents Software That Prevents "Sexting"

Posted 10/13/2010 at 8:28am | by Florence Ion

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It's not easy writing this story without feeling a little bit of awkwardness about the subject matter, but today the US Patent and Trademark Office approved one of Apple's patents that prevents users from sending or receiving text messages with "objectionable" wording. Yes, folks, if you're the type that sends mass text messages with the word "boob", you're probably the demographic that Apple is aiming for.

In all seriousness, while the patent does not strictly refer to "sexting" (as they call it these days), it does do the following:

In one embodiment, the control application includes a parental control application. The parental control application evaluates whether or not the communication contains approved text based on, for example, objective ratings criteria or a user’s age or grade level, and, if unauthorized, prevents such text from being included in the text-based communication.

If the control contains unauthorized text, the control application may alert the user, the administrator or other designated individuals of the presence of such text. The control application may require the user to replace the unauthorized text or may automatically delete the text or the entire communication.

The "unauthorized text" that the description is referring to will have plenty to do with parents who want to ensure that their children aren't sending or receiving creepo messages into the SMS airwaves. While this doesn't specifically pick on words that are related to, um, "sexting", it might be a good way for kids to quit using unconventional slang in their text messages. Well, here's to looking on the bright side, anyway.





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