It’s not yet clear whether Beijing delayed the order because PC makers were having trouble supplying all new machines with the program or in reaction to the international outcry over it. In a letter to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao last week, an international group of business associations that includes most of the world’s major technology companies, called upon China to abandon the plan, which it said “raises serious concerns for us and seems to run counter to China’s important goal of becoming a vibrant and dynamic information-based society.”

But far from the last, I’m sure.

A few weeks back, this sort of update never would have made it into the App Store, but now that the device supports age restrictions for applications, Apple (AAPL) has adopted a more permissive stance toward
“objectionable content.” Browse the Hottest Girls page on the App Store and you’ll find the following warning:

“You must be at least 17 years old to download this game.
Rated 17+ for the following:
Frequent/Intense Sexual Content or Nudity
Frequent/Intense Mature/Suggestive Themes”

“Frequent/Intense Sexual Content or Nudity?” Interesting. It would seem then that Hottest Girls isn’t just the first app to boast nudity, it’s also the first to set up shop in what may become the iPhone’s red light district. It will be interesting to see to what uses the adult entertainment industry can find for the iPhone’s accelerometer….

UPDATE: Apple seems to have pulled the app. It still appears in the iTunes store, but it’s apparently no longer available for download.

UPDATE: The developers of Hottest Girls claim the app wasn’t pulled; it sold out. “The Hottest Girls app is temporarily sold out,” they explain. “The server usage is extremely high because of the popularity of this app. Thus, by not distributing the app, we can prevent our servers from crashing. Those who already have the app will still be able to use our app. To answer the question on everyone’s mind: Yes, the topless images will still be there when it is sold again.”

UPDATE: Apple now says it was indeed responsible for pulling the app.

“According to complaints from many residents, Google’s English language search engine has spread large amounts of vulgar content that is lascivious and pornographic, seriously violating China’s relevant laws and regulations,” foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang told a regularly scheduled news conference. “I’d like to stress that google.com, as an Internet enterprise providing services in China, should earnestly abide by Chinese laws and regulations.”

The disruption of Google (GOOG) services follows a widely criticized mandate from Beijing requiring all computers sold in the country to include Green Dam, an application designed to prevent citizens from viewing “offensive” content, which in the Chinese government’s case includes all manner of material. From a report by the Open Net Initiative, an academic consortium dedicated to the study of censorship and surveillance:

The version of the Green Dam software that we tested, when operating under its default settings, is far more intrusive than any other content control software we have reviewed. Not only does it block access to a wide range of web sites based on keywords and image processing, including porn, gaming, gay content, religious sites and political themes, it actively monitors individual computer behavior, such that a wide range of programs including word processing and email can be suddenly terminated if content algorithm detects inappropriate speech. The program installs components deep into the kernel of the computer operating system in order to enable this application layer monitoring. The operation of the software is highly unpredictable and disrupts computer activity far beyond the blocking of websites.

…The deeply intrusive nature of the software opens up several possibilities for use other than filtering material harmful to minors. With minor changes introduced through the auto-update feature, the architecture could be used for monitoring personal communications and Internet browsing behavior. Log files are currently recorded locally on the machine, including events and keywords that trigger filtering. The auto-update feature can used to change the scope and targeting of filtering without any notification to users.

…the licensee for the 2155-2180 MHz spectrum to provide–using up to 25 percent of its wireless network capacity–free, two-way broadband Internet service at engineered data rates of at least 768 kbps downstream. Additional obligations associated with the licensee’s free broadband service would include a requirement to provide a network-based filtering mechanism for the free Internet service in order to protect children and families.”

Quite a goal, “protecting children and families” from government-defined obscenity. A daunting one, though. As a wise man once said, “You can’t take something off the Internet…. That’s like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.” And in Internet porn’s case, it’s like trying to take it out of a cesspool.

“We’ve heard a lot of complaints from flight attendants and passengers,” union spokesman David Roscow told Bloomberg, though he didn’t offer up any actual incidents as proof. Which isn’t all that surprising, really. After all, travelers have been able to bring pornography on flights for as long as there have been commercial airlines. For crying out loud, airport gift shops and newsstands sell porn. But it’s rarely a problem in-flight because … well, who wants to be the creepy porn guy in seat 21A? And if you don’t mind being that guy and your presence troubles other passengers, your airline obviously have ways of managing that. Said American Airlines (AMR) spokesperson Tim Smith:

Our policy is to provide Wi-Fi capabilities the way customers are most familiar using [them] at home, office, coffee shops and on the road–with unfiltered connections that allow customers to get what they need, when they need it. While it does provide a new access point for information and content, customers viewing inappropriate material on-board a flight is not a new scenario for our crews who have always managed this issue with great success.”

Handy tools for when you’re researching a medical condition at work, shopping online for family Christmas presents, or you know, SURFING PORN, which is, after all, what the Internet was designed for. …

It’s by far the porn-friendliest phone.”

–Sin City Entertainment’s Devan Cypher offers an early review of the iPhone 3G.