Apple yanks Chatroulette

I'm not sure how many of you have visited chatroulette.com. I have. Once. That was more than enough.

The folks running Apple’s App store must have visited themselves, as they announced today the application has been removed from the store. I can't believe the app was approved in the first place, as it's a direct pipeline to online flashers, live and in living color.

Read the Cult of Mac blog post about the app’s removal:
http://bit.ly/9UaE4k

If you're unfamiliar with the website, it's a place that users of computers or other webcam-using devices can visit to see live images from other users’  webcams. The premise is that you can strike up a conversation with someone totally random. If either party declines to engage, an image of the next person appears, and the cycle repeats.

The problem with the site — and the iPhone/iPad app — is that too many people are sitting in front of their computers, iPhones or iPads with something other than a keyboard in their hands. It's an open look at what normally lies behind closed zippers.

I imagine some people have communicated this way, but I suspect more head there for the live peep shows. It’s disgusting.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart is credited with coining the phrase "I know it when I see it," about what defines obscenity. The remark was made in his concurring opinion in Jacobellis v. Ohio, a pornography case the court decided in 1964.

Read an article about the phrase from The Yale Law Journal by Paul Gewirtz from Jan. 1, 1996:
http://bit.ly/arN6fW

Like Justice Stewart, I've seen it and it's obscene. Thank you, Apple.