Starbucks will block pornography from its Wi-Fi beginning next year, Business Insider reports.
SALT LAKE CITY — Starbucks will block pornography from its Wi-Fi beginning next year, Business Insider reports.
What’s going on: The coffee retailer announced it will add a filter to its internet that will halt viewers from visiting pornographic websites and other websites with explicit material, according to Business Insider.
- “While it rarely occurs, the use of Starbucks public Wi-Fi to view illegal or egregious content is not, nor has it ever been, permitted,” Starbucks said in a statement to The Verge. “... We have identified a solution to prevent this content from being viewed within our stores and we will begin introducing it to our U.S. locations in 2019.”
Flashback: McDonald’s blocked pornography from its Wi-Fi back in 2016, BuzzFeed News reports.
- Starbucks said at the time it would add the filters if it found one that could block pornographic websites but not block other websites unintentionally.
Why now?: Enough Is Enough, an internet safety organization, has asked Starbucks and other public retailers with Wi-Fi options to add filters for years.
Comment on this story- The company said Starbucks failed to protect its customers.
- “By breaking its commitment, Starbucks is keeping the doors wide open for convicted sex offenders and others to fly under the radar from law enforcement and use free, public Wi-Fi services to access illegal child porn and hard-core pornography,” said Donna Rice Hughes, the CEO of Enough is Enough, according to The Verge.
- In fact, more than 26,000 people signed a petition from Enough Is Enough that called for Starbucks to filter pornography, according to Business Insider.
