Google Bans Adult Content From Glass, But Porn Always Finds A Way

Porn has long been one of the leading content sectors of the Internet. Yet, it is getting shut out from the latest cutting-edge mobile device coming down the pike, Google Glass.

Just as the first porn app for Google Glass appears, Google bans adult content from its digital eye ware.

Google updated its developer policies for creating Google Glass apps (called Glassware) over the weekend to ban sexually explicit material, building an Apple-like walled garden for Google Glass.

We don’t allow Glassware content that contains nudity, graphic sex acts, or sexually explicit material. Google has a zero-tolerance policy against child pornography. If we become aware of content with child pornography, we will report it to the appropriate authorities and delete the Google Accounts of those involved with the distribution.

This will come as a disappointment to any people that desired to see naked, copulating bodies hover in their line of vision all day long. Or developers looking to serve those people.

Porn’s Leading Innovator Already Has An App For Glass

The news comes as leading adult mobile app maker MiKandi is ready to release a porn app on Glass called “Tits and Glass” (NSFW). It would allow users to browse adult content and vote on it. Also, since one of the prime features of Glass is the fact it is a camera attached to your face, MiKandi allowed for users to shoot their own videos with Glass and upload them to the site.

MiKandi has its own adult app store for Android. Google bans adult content from the Google Play Android app store, but MiKandi apps can be side-loaded as third-party apps outside of Google’s purview. It is likely that the MiKandi Google Glass app could also be side-loaded, but that would likely mean a user would have to root their Glass, which Google has explicitly said will void their warranty (while also showing them just how to do it).

You have to give credit to MiKandi for realizing the potential of Google Glass as a porn distribution mechanism. The ability to watch porn as a small screen hovering above your eye really could bring a whole new kind of, err, interaction to the medium. Just as happened with smartphones, many industries are probing the capabilities of Glass, from content properties like the New York Times to social networks like Path to real estate platform Trulia.

Porn Always Finds A Way

Google may be able to stop an app maker like MiKandi from creating porn apps for Glass, but there’s really nothing Google can do about people who want to record and upload their sexual adventures. With Glass, Google has given people cameras. It just so happens these cameras are attached to peoples’ faces. Google cannot regulate what people do with their own cameras or where they upload that content.

There may not be much Google can do in the long run against porn on Glass. Porn has taken over many other mediums on the Internet, despite efforts to fight against it. Tumblr is notorious for porn and Instagram has its own shadowy porn subculture. Google can threaten porn developers with bans of their Glassware developer licenses or other such penalties. But, as we have seen through the history of the Internet, porn finds a way.