Age-sensitive commercial content
Over recent years there has been a growing awareness of concerns relating to the responsible delivery of sensitive - particularly age-sensitive - commercial content to mobile devices.
Age-sensitive content has been managed in other media for sometime: films and games are typically subject to age-ratings, and television programmes are managed by schedule-based restrictions, for example. As growing numbers of mobile operators offer their customers access to a rich and compelling range of content services, they are faced with the challenge of how to manage content which would have been subject to age-restrictions if accessed through different channels.
To address the issue directly and to create a framework within which a wide range of content services can be offered to customers, the mobile industry has already responded in a number of markets: national codes of practice are in place or under development, national content classification systems are being extended to include mobile content, and a growing number of operators have begun offering parental controls to their customers. As with other media, the responsibility for ensuring that children and teenagers use their mobile devices appropriately is a shared one - operators, parents, carers, and educators all have a role to play as well - so many operators have also launched customer education campaigns to support parents and enable them to make informed choices on behalf of their children.
 Toolkit
The GSMA Public Policy team has produced a Toolkit to support its member base in consolidating learnings so that the mobile community is well placed to proactively manage its responsibilities as it rolls out new content services.
For further information about the Toolkit - "Supporting the responsible delivery of age-sensitive commercial content" - email Natasha Jackson.
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