Operators would rather ban e-books with swearing than risk a PR outcry.
As we all know, operators are deeply deeply conservative institutions. If they were people, they'd tut a lot.
And the thing that would really get them tutting would be swearing of any kind. The 9pm watershed can't come soon enough for these guys.
Now, I'd bet – no I'm absolutely certain – that operator offices are full of people effing and blinding about the effing football and the motherfunking budget and the co*ksu*king parking ticket they got last week.
But when it comes to official language, operators evoke the spirit of Britain's golden postwar years, when only sailors swore and absolutely no one had sex.
I mention this because I attended a press event held by Mobcast, the mobile books distributor this morning, and the conversation turned to age restrictions on books.
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Now, there are obviously no laws against anyone of any age buying any book in a shop or even on Amazon. But on Vodafone, there absolutely is.
The operator – three per cent owned by the Church Of England I just found out – is deeply worried about the PR backlash when the first nine year old buys Michel Houellebecq's Atomised (and kids, you really should, it's wonderfully dirty).
So it's proposing to apply age restrictions to books just as it does to adult content and some games and music.
Tom McLennan, who heads Voda's book operation, admits this is a minefield. And Mobcast's Tony Lynch, in a delicious double ententre, agreed it's a 'pain in the arse'.
The problem is who makes the editorial judgement when there is no existing system of age categorisation? Can you make make Catch 22 for the over 18s only, when it's on the GCSE syllabus?
McLennan revealed that when it was rating music, Voda would look carefully at hip hop tracks but let country and western go through with no checks.
But when you think about it, country and western is full of spousal abuse, abandoned children and marital infidelity. Surely that's more troubling to kids than a few f words?
After all, they hear those every day in school. Especially when the head teacher's having a really bad day.
