Rating Applications for Android Market

Starting next week, Android applications available for download will be required to post a rating that determines for what age an app is appropriate. Any new or updated apps will require a rating by next week, and application developers that do not plan to update soon will be given just a couple weeks to add the ratings. If they don’t, their app will default to a “Mature” rating.

The confusing part about this change in the Android market is that the application developers come up with the ratings themselves. As noted in an article on SlashGears.com, it is obvious that developers will not apply ratings to their apps if those ratings will hurt sales.

The other odd part about app ratings for Android Market apps is the enforcement of these ratings. Yes, an application that is designed to let you watch porn will likely have an “MA,” or mature, rating. But what is stopping any 10-year-old with a smartphone from downloading that MA rated app? Seemingly nothing except a parent sifting through their cell phone apps to make sure there is nothing inappropriate.

The ratings will follow similar ratings of video games. Apps will be rated under the following categories: All, Pre-teen, Teen, and Mature. The difference between cell phone apps and video games is that you need to buy video games (most of them) in person, so a 10-year-old can’t waltz into a Game Stop and purchase Call of Duty: Black Ops. On a phone, however, it seems that most downloadable applications, especially free apps, will be as easily accessible as free porn sites on the internet.

Even with the newly announced Android app rating system coming next week, Google still has a huge leg up on Apple when it comes to app revenue. Yes, Steve Jobs wants to be the ultra-pure tech genius and ignore pornography completely, but let’s remember how he wanted to ignore Flash and how well that worked out for him. The porn industry makes more money than most, so it makes sense to assume Google will soon be raking in millions of dollars from porn apps, even though they generally have nothing to do with creating them.

This new Android app rating system may seem like it would hurt Google slightly, but in reality, they are just readying themselves for an onslaught of income and attention of Android pornography apps.

It’s not up to Google, or Apple, or Steve Jobs to say what consumers can or can’t access on technology they paid for, so I applaud Google in approaching this pornography application issue with intelligence, foresight, and respect for its customers. By offering this rating system, they have done all they need to do to respectfully allow applications that might not fall under their most approved content.

Let’s just watch all the “mature” rated apps skyrocket in downloads!