Now, its pretty well known fact that I’m not as wildly promiscuous as I have been in past years, but I’d still like the ability to send a good drunk text. Apple is now trying to make that impossible. Today the US Patent and Trademark Office approved a patent Apple filed in 2008, which, get this, prevents users from sending or receiving “objectionable” text messages. The patent’s official title? “Text-based communication control for personal communication device” which actually doesn’t use the pretty ridiculous noun/verb “Sexting,” but come on, we all know what they mean.
The “Sexting” patent background info states that the problem it solves is that there is currently “No way to monitor and control text communications to make them user appropriate. For example, users such as children may send or receive messages (intentionally or not) with parentally objectionable language.”
And the patent itself:
In one embodiment, the control application includes a parental control application. The parental control application evaluates whether or not the communication contains approved text based on, for example, objective ratings criteria or a user’s age or grade level, and, if unauthorized, prevents such text from being included in the text-based communication. Good thing I use BlackBerry.