hiya,
just got out of bef to let you know this came through today. if you do wap sites with uk traffic you need to know, one of our aggregators / partners sent it to me.
all about making the mobile internet, mms and sms a safer place. we're sorted, just fed the data up the food chain but from a 'non connected' wap site developers point of view where to go and what to do next i don't know but a good hunt around the vf site might be a starter for ten.
says a lot about wap push (ppg) and shortcodes but will also effect pull based wap traffic
doesn't matter if the scripting is duff if the network wont let people visit!
hth:
Vodafone Guide to Content Control
Summary
In March’04 Vodafone will launch its Content Control product, designed
to prevent minors accessing
inappropriate content.
Vodafone will take on the role ! of age validator for its customer base,
meaning that after launch (e.g.
WAP-push in March, Text in December), any customer whose request to
access an adult service is
passed through Vodafone to an aggregator has been age verified. Vodafone
will collect age
registration details for its customer at point of sale, or through a web
and wap registration system.
Once a customer has successfully opted out of Content Control, no
further restrictions will be placed
on their access to internet, voice, text or MMS.
Service providers need to be aware of the impact Content Control will
have on their business, and
what they need to do to minimise the impact on their non-adult service
offerings.
SMS, MMS and WAP Push services
MMS
When new MMS services are provisioned they will be identified as either
Adult or Universal services.
Adult MMS services will not be delivered to unregistered users.
Text Services!
Adult text services, such as sex chat lines are run behind sh ortcodes in
the range 69XXX and 89XXX.
These services will be placed behind Content Control in December 04. At
this point, an unregistered
user sending a text message to a 69 or 89 number will receive a message
from Vodafone stating that
their request has been blocked and informing them that they will need to
register in order to remove
the bar.
Similarly, if a service provider tries to send a message to an
unregistered user from a 69 or 89
shortcode, the message won’t be delivered.
Text as an activation and payment route for non-text services
Where text is used as the subscription or charging mechanism for other
services, such as the billing
element of an MMS or WAP service, then Vodafone regards that text as an
intrinsic part of that
service. In these cases service providers should ensure that these text
services are run from separate
short codes from straight text services.
E.g a subscription for a! n adult wap site should not use the same
shortcode as a subscription to a text
chat service.
Vodafone is taking a staged approach to its roll out of Content Control,
and this migration of services
from shared shortcodes is a requirement of that action. Consequently,
until December O4, if service
providers require an additional shortcode to support Vodafone in this
matter Vodafone will provide it
free of charge.
After December, when all adult shortcodes fall behind Content Control,
these measures will no longer
be required. Service providers can choose either to surrender the
shortcode or to continue using it
and be charged accordingly
Text User-Experience
If an unregistered user tries send an SMS to an adult shortcode, the
message will not be passed on to
the Services provider. Instead, Vodafone will block the message, and
send a response informing
them that they need to regsiter in order to acc! ess the service an
provide a WAP URL where they can
do this.
If a service provider tries to send an SMS from an adult shortcode to an
unregistered user, the
message will fail and in the short term a generic uneliverable error
code will be returned to the service
provider. The end user will not be made aware than anyone has attempted
to send them a message.
Towards the end of the year Vodafone will be able to provide an error
message which states if a
message has failed due to Content Control.
Internet
Vodafone will be placing a filtering system on the web and WAP gatway,
restriciting access to sites
containing adult content.
Vodafone’s internet filter contains both an index of known sites and an
algorithm to dynamically asses
unknown sites. In the case of WAP content, where the filter is unable to
read the content (e.g. a java
game, or a ring tone), the filter will fail to verify the content. In
these cases, the system will bar these
sites until a human is ab! le to rate the content (if possible).
Consequently, there is a risk that content which would attract a
universal rating, such as a ring tone,
will be blocked by the internet filter for unregistered users, or users
who are registered but under 18.
Vodafone recognises that this will create problems for many content
providers, and has identified what
it believes to be a solution.
Vodafone has the option to white list specific URLs which are trusted to
contain no adult content. In
the case of content providers, this will require them to ensure that if
their content is stored at a URL
which also contains adult content, then they need to split the site in
such as way that the universal
content is distinguishable to the filter. For example, for a mixed
content site, universal content should
be identified thus:
http://www.samplesite.com/universal/content-directory
and adult content identified like this
http://www.samplesite.com/adult/content-directory
Following this procedure and notifiying Vodafone of the URLs of the
content will enable Vodafone to
white-list the universal content, ensuring that it is available to all
users.
Internet (WAP and WE😎 user experience
When an unregistered user attempts to access an adult internet site,
they will be presented with a
page informing them the site has been blocked and be advised to register
in order to access it in
future.
Summary of Actions required
If you offer:
Adult Text services
· No change to these services until December
· Vodafone marketing from September
Adult Voice services
· No change to these services until December
· Vodafone marketing from September
Adult WAP-Push services
· Behind Content Control from March 12th 2004
· Should use separate shortcode from Text services for subscription,
delivery and billing
· Notify Vodafone of shortcodes of Adult services
· E! nsure that the URL identifies the content as adult in a standardised
format across your domain
(eg www.exampleservice.com/adult/all-content-here )
Non-Adult WAP-push services
· Risk of impact from Content Control without action on your part
· Ensure that the URL identifies the content as non-adult in a
standardised format across your domain (e.g.
www.exampleservice.com/universal/all-content-here)
· Notify Vodafone of URLs for white listing by March 12th 2004
Non Adult WAP services
· Risk of impact from Content Control without action on your part
· Ensure that the URL identifies the content as non-adult in a
standardised format across your domain (e.g.
www.exampleservice.com/universal/all-content-here)
· Notify Vodafone of URLs for white listing by March 12th 2004
