Starbucks Says It Will Start Blocking Porn On Its Stores' Wi-Fi In 2019 (nbcnews.com) 218
Starbucks announced that it will start blocking pornography viewing on its stores' Wi-Fi starting in 2019. "A Starbucks representative told NBC News that the viewing of 'egregious content' over its stores' Wi-Fi has always violated its policy, but the company now has a way to stop it," reports NBC News. From the report: "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," the company representative said. The announcement was first reported by Business Insider and comes after a petition from internet-safety advocacy group Enough is Enough garnered more than 26,000 signatures. The nonprofit launched a porn-free campaign aimed at McDonald's and Starbucks in 2014, and it says that while McDonald's "responded rapidly and positively," Starbucks did not.
In a letter that [Enough is Enough CEO Donna Rice Hughes] said she received from Starbucks over the summer, the company vowed to address the issue "once we determine that our customers can access our free Wi-Fi in a way that also doesn't involuntarily block unintended content." Starbucks has not released details about how it plans to restrict the viewing of pornographic sites or illegal content over its Wi-Fi. In response, the vice president of YouPorn responded by sending a memo to staff banning Starbucks products from company offices starting Jan. 1, 2019.
In a letter that [Enough is Enough CEO Donna Rice Hughes] said she received from Starbucks over the summer, the company vowed to address the issue "once we determine that our customers can access our free Wi-Fi in a way that also doesn't involuntarily block unintended content." Starbucks has not released details about how it plans to restrict the viewing of pornographic sites or illegal content over its Wi-Fi. In response, the vice president of YouPorn responded by sending a memo to staff banning Starbucks products from company offices starting Jan. 1, 2019.
That's petty (Score:5, Insightful)
People bringing coffee to work is considered pretty normal. People watching porn at a coffee shop isn't. That VP is making YouPorn look pretty stupid.
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It does happen.
~Eva
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If he was editing porn clips that much, it's quite possible he does that for a living. Someone has to.
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Yes, but do they have to do it in Starbucks?
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well starbucks now won't kick anyone out ... even dirty and smelly homeless people who haven't bought anything, move their shopping-cart condo in with them and sleep there all day.
I'm sure a bit of porn editing wouldn't be an issue.
Also, VPN. Why does no one understand the concept of VPN on /.?
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I'm sure he isn't banning all coffee at work. There are at least two major chains that compete with Starbucks here. There's even a good chance of one of those other coffee shop chains (or, gasp, even a private establishment!) being closer to their office.
Re: That's petty (Score:3)
Re: That's petty (Score:5, Interesting)
If, in your mind, you need to get coffee from a coffee shop to bring to work, you are probably still in school or work for now, and have always worked for, shit companies who haven't figured out that the cost of caffeine is easily offset by the improvement in productivity providing it confers.
Or maybe you've noticed that the free coffee invariably sucks and/or the machine's out of order half the time.
When I still worked in the office, I kept my own beans, grinder, electric kettle, and plunger pot there: "Y'all can drink that swill if you like; I prefer coffee, thanks."
Re: That's petty (Score:2)
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Oh I see, you're one of those guys.
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Or maybe you've noticed that the free coffee invariably sucks and/or the machine's out of order half the time.
That's just redundant. The GP already said shit companies.
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Cost of coffee is tangible. Money crosses the organisation boundary. It shows up on somebody's cost centre.
Productivity, and the indirect effect small things have on it, is difficult to measure at the best of times.
Which do you think the MBAs & PHBs are more likely to care about?
Re: That's petty (Score:3)
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Talking to yourself again.
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I haven't worked at or heard of any IT company that doesn't provide free coffee to their employees for as long as I can remember. If, in your mind, you need to get coffee from a coffee shop to bring to work, you are probably still in school or work for now, and have always worked for, shit companies who haven't figured out that the cost of caffeine is easily offset by the improvement in productivity providing it confers.
We have free coffee... it's AWFUL!
I brew my own at my desk rather than drink the free crap.
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so they will be blocking instagram, faebook, you tube ....
i see them failing
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The perfect is the enemy of the good enough. This is doubly true when it's a PR move.
If they catch you watching porn in a Starbucks, you're still gonna get thrown out.
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That's petty
No that's free marketing.
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More than likely it was a joke. Combination joke and marketing stunt.
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Its also a way to weed out employees who value their branded coffee more than their paycheck.
Re: That's petty (Score:2)
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I can assure you that people watching porn in Starbucks is not a real issue
You really can't, at least not with any sort of authority. You go to Starbucks regularly, sure, but your sample of behavior at Starbucks' coffee shops is still ludicrously small for drawing any conclusions.
Let's suppose that only one Starbucks patron in a million watches porn at Starbucks, and let's suppose that you've visited Starbucks four times daily, seven days per week, for 10 years. That's just over 100,000 visits. The probability that you'd have seen a porn-watcher in 100K visits is 9.5%.
There
Re: That's petty (Score:2, Insightful)
I can (Score:2)
You really can't, at least not with any sort of authority.
Have you ever BEEN on Starbucks WiFi? No way anyone is streaming anything over that pitifully slow network, much less porn.
I am on conference calls sometimes where the audio is from people in different places all over IP, and the people who broadcast from cafes (including Starbucks) have maddeningly terrible audio.
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You really can't, at least not with any sort of authority.
Have you ever BEEN on Starbucks WiFi? No way anyone is streaming anything over that pitifully slow network, much less porn.
I have. Some are okay, most suck.
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porn can be pictures, not video.;
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Let's suppose that only one Starbucks patron in a million watches porn at Starbucks, and let's suppose that you've visited Starbucks four times daily, seven days per week, for 10 years. That's just over 100,000 visits. The probability that you'd have seen a porn-watcher in 100K visits is 9.5%.
There's a flaw in the reasoning here. This assumes each time he goes to a Starbucks he observes exactly one other patron. They are usually more crowded than that, especially at times the OP is most likely to be visiting the.
The real question that needs answering, is one more likely to observe someone else's porn at Starbucks or get hit by lightning?
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Let's suppose that only one Starbucks patron in a million watches porn at Starbucks, and let's suppose that you've visited Starbucks four times daily, seven days per week, for 10 years. That's just over 100,000 visits. The probability that you'd have seen a porn-watcher in 100K visits is 9.5%.
There's a flaw in the reasoning here. This assumes each time he goes to a Starbucks he observes exactly one other patron. They are usually more crowded than that, especially at times the OP is most likely to be visiting the.
Valid point, though it doesn't change the answer that much. A bigger flaw -- in the opposite direction -- is that he doesn't see a random sample from the pool of all Starbucks customers, but will tend to mostly see people from one smallish pool, many of them repeatedly. So a better way to think about this is to estimate the size of the pool that he has observed and calculate the probability that at least one of them is a Starbucks porn watcher.
The real question that needs answering, is one more likely to observe someone else's porn at Starbucks or get hit by lightning?
Get hit by lightning inside a Starbucks? I would hope that t
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People bringing coffee to work is considered pretty normal. People watching porn at a coffee shop isn't. That VP is making YouPorn look pretty stupid.
You're right that one is normal and one isn't; but, I'm pretty sure it was more of a gesture than thinking he was achieving something. I disagree he looks stupid- I would say "petty" is a more accurate term.
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That VP is making YouPorn look pretty stupid.
No, you're the one who's stupid.
Businesses such as pornographic enterprises, need to inculcate an employee "team" mentality. You can just let Starbuck shit on your company, and erode employee solidarity with their job, or energize the employee base, with an "us vs them" distraction. YouPorn is not Google, and they replace one branded caffeine junkie employee with one who better desires collecting a paycheck and can get their caffeine fix from a different brand.
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That VP is making YouPorn look pretty stupid.
Not really. He's just making a point about a company banning another. To be clear his point will fall on deaf ears for the reason you listed, but it's not stupid. If anything it's a good narrative on how the actions of a company are always filtered through a lens of social acceptance.
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Iced coffee is an abomination. Do you also douse your Fillet Mignon with ketchup?
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Funny, I go to Starbucks every day but I've never spent $6+ for a drink nor does it contain a drop of sugar.
Indeed, I only go to Starbucks once every 3 or 4 months or so and I walk out with a black cup of coffee for about $2 (which is still a lot more than making my own- but not that different to most places outside the home nowadays).
Already doing this (Score:5, Funny)
I figured they already did this. I was unable to get to pornhub from starbucks the other day. I go there to read the articles.
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It seems fairly pointless anyway, given that a) people have mobile data and b) I doubt many people go to Starbucks to look at porn.
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If you're determined to get yourself deliberately thrown out of Starbucks, surely you can think of a nobler reason than that.
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For example.
Porn in SB? Jesus, just look at the logo.... (Score:2)
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End of an era (Score:4, Funny)
There goes their profits on "hot whipped & frothy" lattes.
Re:End of an era (Score:5, Funny)
It's going to save them a fortune on napkins though.
can't block vpn's! (Score:3)
can't block vpn's!
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Well... you say that, but... they can actually. They can absolutely block VPNs.
Blocking them reliably without blocking all encrypted and non-HTTP traffic however would be a full-time job, so I'm guessing security is going out the window too.
Re:can't block vpn's! (Score:4, Insightful)
most likely they will use some sort of DNS filter and call it a policy... blocking VPN's would actually affect way more people that actually do real work from starbucks. deep packet/ssl inspection MITM would probably not fly.
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all my sales department would disagree with you :)
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all my sales department would disagree with you :)
"Sales Department" - you just proved him right. Sales Departments don't do work.
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as long as they generate money, whatever they do is called work :)
Re:can't block vpn's! (Score:5, Insightful)
Nah, they'll block the obvious sites. They're responding to a bad press attack by a special interest group. They need to do something so they can say, see, we did something.
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A couple of special interest groups. They coordinate. They have to, because no company considers Enough is Enough to be worthy of notice on their own, and NCoSE is still routinely making claims that exposure to pornography causes the brain to physically shrink.
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Nah, they'll block the obvious sites. They're responding to a bad press attack by a special interest group. They need to do something so they can say, see, we did something.
Yeah. The big legitimate ones that probably won't download a virus. The small illegitimate ones that don't have a reputation to keep and download viruses- they'll be the ones that people have to access now!
Still... no one needs to be watching that kind of stuff at Starbucks. Falls under public indecency.
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I wish one day someone would have the balls to block special interest groups.
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Well, Starbucks is blocking the porn industry and YouPorn apparently blocked Starbucks. Does that count?
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Nah because the easily offended get off free again after ruining it for everyone.
Normal (Score:2)
Isn't this par for the course basically everywhere?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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but you get free porn with it... until now :)
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And value (Score:3)
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And nothing of value was lost.
Are you kidding? PORN!
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Well you sure as hell wouldn't go there for the horrid tasting swill they call coffee.
Old news... (Score:2)
Slashdot should change there motto from: "News for Nerds" to: "Yesterday's News Today!"
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[sic]their
Bloody Slashdot and their "no edits no deletes" BS...
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Slashdot should change there motto from: "News for Nerds" to: "Yesterday's News Today!"
True for all News Aggregators and always has been.
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Get over your fear-of-missing-out and give-me-all-the-things-now addictions.
Oh please, it has nothing to do with "missing out" or an addiction to immediacy, and everything to do with the fact that just about *EVERY* story I see on Slashdot is a repeat of something I saw somewhere else the day before.
I don't expect Slashdot to post "zero-hour" journalism, but I do expect Slashdot articles to at least be current to the *day*. If it was posted elsewhere the day before, it doesn't belong on Slashdot.
Will they block Wikipedia? (Score:2)
Take note (Score:2)
Let me fix that for you (Score:2)
Starbucks Says It Will Start Trying To Block Porn On Its Stores' Wi-Fi In 2019
Good luck with that!
And what way is that, exactly? (Score:2)
Color me skeptical... if people own the hardware the connects to their wifi, how do they actually stop it?
If it's difficult enough to stop kids from accessing porn on a home computer without parents using explicit whitelists, I fail to see how Starbucks can do this when they don't even control the connecting hardware.
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They don't.
The number of people actually looking at porn in starbucks is tiny, and easily dealt with by asking them to stop or kicking them out. This policy is more for PR reasons. A few anti-pornography pressure groups have been pushing for various companies to start blocking porn for years, and Starbucks is on their list. So Starbucks gets pestered with petitions and badmouthed in opinion columns all over right-leaning media. Eventually Starbucks board notices this and thinks 'Why not? It'll shut them up,
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Let's see... OneNewsNow is run by the AFA, which is a major pressure group in the US, which makes it right-wing but not fringe.
https://www.onenewsnow.com/cul... [onenewsnow.com]
That's an article from 2016 which condemns Starbucks for ignoring demands to install filtering.
And here'a a Fox article from a similar time which explains how companies which provide unfiltered wifi are helping terrorists and child molesters:
https://www.foxnews.com/opinio... [foxnews.com]
Starbucks is specifically mentioned, though the focus is more on congratulati
Cream in your coffee, sir? (Score:2)
"Well, 'til January, at least.
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It's a verb, you stupid ass pirate. But thanks for letting everybody know about your preferred diet.
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You prefer jizz from underage boys because you are a homosexual pedophile. Probably a priest. I don't imagine their skin colour makes a lot of difference to you. A lot of anonymous cowards are like you.
I stopped relying on Starbucks WiFi (Score:2)
Better hurry ... (Score:2)
Their Goes Their Business Model (Score:2)
Well that does it! (Score:2)
First they got rid of the maple-oat scones and Tazo tea - and now the porn?
They really don't want my business, do they?
I'll show them (Score:2)
I'll download my porn BEFORE I go to Starbucks!!! Just like I do when I fly!
What if it's not just porn? (Score:2)
Suppose Starbucks or someone other party wants to censor stuff that's not pornographic. Suppose Company A pays Starbucks block content from Company B.
VPN = View Porn Now! (Score:2)
'nuf said.
That seems reasonable to me (Score:2)
I mean it's a coffee shop, c'mon
That being said, good god is it terrible coffee.
Americans, my condolences, your coffee really is truly awful.
They've been under pressure for a while. (Score:2)
It's not just Enough is Enough, the organisation mentioned in the article. The anti-pornography organisation National Campign on Sexual Exploitation (Formerly Morality in Media) has been trying to push Starbucks (and other companies) to block pornography for years.
I can't see any reason for starbucks not to block porn, really. It doesn't cost much, and even if it's totally ineffective, it lets them save face any time a customer complains about seeing something they would rather not have. It probably just to
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Because I've spent the last fifteen years insulting organisations like theirs on the internet.
I started insulting them when I read an article which quoted an FRC representative calling for states to ban HPV vaccination as it encouraged underage sex, and I just never stopped. I read what they say, and I write comments against them. Sometimes detailed intellectual criticisms, sometimes crude trolling, whatever seems appropriate. I make sure I understand thoroughly those I intend to mock.
Who in hell watches porn at Starbucks? (Score:2)
People watch porn in public libraries, where creepy bums are a legally protected class.
that is why (Score:2)
that is why i download all my pron first before going to starbucks!
"Now" they have a way to stop it? (Score:2)
4G (Score:2)
4G is generally faster than most "Free" wifi.
Go sit in your car and watch pr0n. Just try not to get hot latte in your lap.
PornStar(bucks) (Score:2)
Sounds like somebody needs to make a film called PornStarbucks. The pun is good, and the location just made headlines.
Too much Monkey Business (Score:2)
Yes, she's *that* Donna Rice.
Porn banned on their wireless? (Score:2)
Are there a lot of Starbucks where 4G isn't available anyway?
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Re:Net neutrality arguments? (Score:4, Informative)
That's like arguing that an internet kiosk in a department store that only allows accessing a store's own website to search products is a violation of net neutrality. Starbucks is not an ISP, they're a coffee company that happens to offer customers some internet service under certain conditions.
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Starbucks is not an ISP, they're a coffee company that happens to offer customers some internet service under certain conditions.
This. But NN is moot, because the Pai FCC killed it, remember?
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The connection is complimentary. You could just as well be trying to complain about what KIND of chocolate a hotel leaves on the pillows in their rooms, or perhaps which sports game a bar is choosing to show on their TV.
I don't approve of censorship, but Starbucks is (fortunately) not an ISP. Your cable company is. And before you get into it, the law would be simple: Any service provider who is getting their service from another service provider can filter as they please, UNLESS that upstream provider is no
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Am I just supposed to drink coffee and jerk off at home now or what?
Just be careful if you're jiggling around doing that, that you don't spill your coffee.