Fergus Cassidy

Flesh opportunity

IT shouldn't come as much of a shock that an exhibition/conference showcasing X-rated products last month was held in Amsterdam.

Neither should it be surprisingly to read that executives from mobile operators Vodafone, Orange, MMO2 and Virgin Mobile were spotted wandering around Adult Online Europe.

These are some of the biggest names in mobile communications and there is every indication that they see great potential for profit in online adult services. A polite and discreet way of referring to what the Victorians defined as pornography.

Porn is a gigantic global industry generating massive revenues. Beginning in earnest with the print era, the porn business spread its wings with moving images and began to soar with the internet. Now it wants to go wireless.

After the farcical false start with WAP's cheeky promise of 'internet-to-go', the arrival of third generation (3G) handsets later this year is being heralded as the real deal. With two out of the three Irish 3G networks ready to be rolled out, it's understandable that fear and anxiety surrounds these new phones and networks.

While there is some deja vu about all of this, especially when the internet moved into the mainstream, the mobile phone networks are not an automatic extension of the net. The mobile internet is somewhat of a misnomer.

While the unique structure of the internet is such that it makes controlling access and content very difficult to police or regulate, mobile phone networks are not designed in the same way. They are essentially wholly private networks where access and content can be regulated in a far greater way than the broader internet. Mobile networks can operate as walled gardens.

If someone wants to set up a web site containing legal adult porn, they find a company to host it (of which there are thousands) and they're launched on the internet. Not really possible with the mobile networks, where permission to access is required.

And that is one of the puzzling aspects arising from the announcement last week of the setting up of a national register of 3G phones when they arrive here.

Puzzling because like many businesses and parents already do using off-the-shelf filtering software, the mobile phone companies are in a position to control content on their networks. So why are the operators supporting compulsory registration?

A proposed register will mean that proof of identity will be required to acquire the new 3G phones. This would reverse the current situation where the majority of the almost 3m GSM phones currently in use in Ireland are pre-paid and do not require registration.

One of the main benefits for the mobile operators is that such a register would determine a purchaser's age from the outset. At little or no cost to the operators. Compulsory registration also provides far more of the type of personal information beloved of the marketing departments, but determining who is over 18 would be the promised land.

As long as adult content can be restricted to over 18s, the sky's the limit for profits. Industry research company Gartner has estimated that adult content on mobiles in western Europe will be worth $1.5bn (E1.23bn) next year. That's roughly 5% of the mobile data market.

Tina Southall, head of content standards at Vodafone, told the International Herald Tribune last month: "It's a big commercial opportunity, so it is fair to say that commercial operators will have to exploit this opportunity in some way".

British operator Virgin Mobile has a head of adult services and Hutchison 3G (due to start-up here as 3) has signed a deal with Playboy for some of its markets. At the signing, the company's managing director for European Telecommunications said he was "very pleased to be partnering with Playboy in this segment of the market".

A couple of weeks ago The Irish Times reported that O2 Ireland's chief executive had not ruled out the distribution of adult content on its mobile network but indicated that the company would have to be confident the content would not be accessed by people under 18.

Both Vodafone and O2 made massive profits in Ireland last year, topping half a billion euro between them. This is not enough, it would seem, as they seek to recoup the enormous cost of the European 3G licenses.

When the announcement was made last week on the proposed register, the minister for communications remarked: "The bottom line is this - while I understand the need to recoup infrastructural investment, while I understand the industry don't want a cumbersome, impracticable register, which would put off consumers and be unworkable, we must all understand that protection of minors is an absolute necessity - bigger than all [my emphasis] other considerations".

All should mean all.