Indian telcos to offer parents censorship tool for porn sites

All major Indian telecom companies, including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance Communications, Telenor and Reliance Jio Infocomm, are considering handing over a responsibility to consumers, who would be able to exclude access to porn sites from their subscriptions. This would be done by offering them a censorship tool.

This move has come after Indian government imposed a short-lived ban on about 900 porn sites last year. After a social media uproar, the move had to be scrapped.

Telcos want the government to know that they are aware of its concerns but they also have to respect the freedom of individuals to choose what they want to access. Porn sites also ensure significant revenue for them.

To make this plan active, telcos and internet service providers (ISPs) are talking to New Zealand-based Bypass Network Services (BNSL) for deploying its Buddy Guard parental control solution, Matthew Jackson, the company's cofounder told ET. He, however, declined to name the possible clients.

Buddy Guard is meant for parents who want to regulate the online behaviour of their children, and allows them the control on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.

The industry experts are also of the view that government intervention in such matters should be kept to a minimum. "Competition and customer choice are potent factors for those who arey concerned to exercise such controls. Given the complexity and wide range of content and applications, this is best left to the industry to manage," said Rajan Mathews, who serves as the director general of the Cellular Operators Association of India, the GSM lobby group. "We do not believe that government should intervene, other than to provide guidelines to users who may be concerned about this," he further stated.

A recent survey by Pornhub, one of the world's largest porn websites, showed that Indians are among the most prolific consumers of internet pornography.

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