Trade body to launch voluntary scheme today.
The proposed system will be formally unveiled today in Washington by US Senators Kelly Ayotte and Mark Pryor, CTIA CEO Steve Largent and ESRB president Patricia Vance.
It will publish ratings for violence and sexual content on a five-point scale from “everyone” to “adults only.”
The system will be voluntary and operated by the Entertainment Software Rating Board, which has run similar ratings for computer and video games in the US since 1994.
Adult app makers will be watching carefully. And probably ruefully.
The app market is largely denied to them thanks to the draconian policies of Apple, and the nervousness of Google.
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This has forced many adult providers to look to HTML5 web apps as the future platform of choice.
Today, we'll find out what the CTIA policy is on web apps. What we do know it that developers will be required to answer online questions about content, social networking features and the sharing of user location data. Once the questionnaire is completed, the app will receive its rating in seconds.
Participating in the new ratings system are Microsoft., AT&T, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile USA, Sprint Nextel and U.S. Cellular.
Neither Google or Apple is on-board yet.
Both would no doubt insist that their own approvals systems do the job perfectly well thank you very much.
Christopher Katsaros, a Google spokesman, said: “We’ve put a lot of effort into Android Market’s rating system, which now works well globally.
“While we support other systems, we think it’s best for Android users and developers to stick with Android’s existing ratings.”
Apple has not commented.
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