Searching the word 'Jewish' returns some quite disturbing results
Engadget has highlighted an unsavory side-effect of Google's relaxed attitude to the kind of content permitted on Android Market.
It turns out that if you search for the word 'Jewish' on the store, among the results returned are Nazi themes.
Clearly this isn't the kind of content that should be available from a mainstream channel (or any channel, for that matter) in a forward-thinking society. But as Engadget's editorial points out, it raises all sorts of questions about the place of censorship - and common sense - in the app store world.
To date, Apple's App Store policies have been much-maligned, particularly its blanket censorship of adult content, with Android Market being seen as the more relaxed and open channel.
But what to do when the content in question is hateful with the potential to incite?
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Engadget rightly points out that this should be where common sense steps in - it's unthinkable that Google would willingly have its platform distribute Nazi content - and it should certainly have rules in place to stop it from happening, whatever the wider censorship debate.
Given that's it's still relatively early days for the app stores, it's almost certain that other examples of questionable or downright objectionable content will appear in the future - how they're handled should be uppermost in the minds of the app store owners.
