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themudmom
Posts: 3
Registered: ‎03-29-2012

Parental Controls

When I walk into a B&N store I have NEVER EVER seen any porn books, what makes you think I want them on my NOOK????

 

There are inappropriate "sex" books out there that just pop up.  There needs to be a way to BLOCK those kinds of books.  And before you get wild on me...YES I have password protected the buying option AND the WiFi.  YES, I moniter my children and don't allow them to do ANY book searches without me.  And I have little children 10 and under.  I saw B&N advertising this amazing product with animated books, in color with the capability of touching a word and the NOOK reading the word back to them.  HOW COOL AND AMAZING IS THAT?  It's super cool.  My 10 year old hated reading before we got this, now he loves reading.  My 4 year old loves all of her Dr. Seuss NOOK BOOKS.

 

The other day I did a search for the Fablehaven Series WITH my 10 year old and an Erotica book was first on the list.  You can password protect all you want but that doesn't stop the cover picture and discription from coming up.

 

B&N needs to come up with a way to block those books.  They are ADVERTISING toward children NOW and they need to have blocking capablilities in place.  What they really should do is allow us to tell them if this is a NOOK used by school aged children and then they load a DIFFERENT criteria for that NOOK.  They have amazing books out there for kids and a NOOK just for kids would be well received!!!

 

AGAIN: When I walk into a B&N store I have NEVER EVER seen any porn, what makes you think I want it on my NOOK?  I am VERY disappointed with you B&N.

Distinguished Bibliophile
roustabout
Posts: 3,619
Registered: ‎03-31-2011

Re: Parental Controls

A year ago, I would have disagreed with you. 

 

Now, I find that I agree with you.  Not because I have had a kid in the interim, but because I've read what BN has to say about their target demographic for this device. 

 

http://bookclubs.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Community-Room/Julie-The-Average-Nook-Owner/m-p/1313019/messa...

 

There are a couple of problems for BN:  booksellers have always resisted censoring their offerings and displays, and for good reason.  So there's an institutional bias against doing so in hte online shop, also. 

 

More importantly, romance novels, broadly defined, are an incredibly profitable business for all concerned.  And the target demographic for romance novels and for the Nook devices overlaps. 

 

So the instinct against censorship is reinforced by the marketers, who can probably count how many complaints they get for displaying inappropriate material against how many sales are generated by displaying it and are arguing that a lot of money is made offering up the racy titles as often as possible. 

 

I don't know if BN is actually capturing the data on displayed titles versus sold titles versus owners' gender, date of birth, zip code and other demographics inferred either by billing zip code, past purchase history, or both - but if they're not, or not using it to drive their marketing decisions, I'd be surprised. 

 

The real question for me is "how hard would it be to let an account opt-out of the steamier search results?"  The question for BN, and please don't be offended here, is "how much would setting that up cost them in lost sales?"  I'm sure there's a substantial group who don't want those titles displayed when their kids are around, but who are intersted in it when their kids aren't around. 

 

An on-off switch something like safe search on Google is a possibility, but probably more challenging to set up than an opt-out list, and I'd bet it would be expensive in lost sales, since I'm sure many purchases in all categories are impulse purchases. 

"no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution.
Inspired Scribe
kamas716
Posts: 1,472
Registered: ‎09-28-2011
0 Kudos

Re: Parental Controls


themudmom wrote:

AGAIN: When I walk into a B&N store I have NEVER EVER seen any porn, what makes you think I want it on my NOOK?  I am VERY disappointed with you B&N.


I'll agree that B&N could use a better search engine, particularly on the Nook devices.

 

However, unless things have changed recently, "porn" books and magazines are certainly available in the stores.  When I was in college I used to pick up the occassional Playboy, and they had other selections on the top rack as well.  And there was a "romance" section in the back of the store.

http://www.goodreads.com/kamas716
Distinguished Bibliophile
bobstro
Posts: 3,758
Registered: ‎01-01-2012

Re: Parental Controls


themudmom wrote:

[...] There are inappropriate "sex" books out there that just pop up.  There needs to be a way to BLOCK those kinds of books. 


I think B&N just has a lousy search engine. My kids don't use my device, and I'm not particularly offended that such titles exist, but there is absolutely zero chance that I'll ever buy one. Including 'romance' or 'erotica' results is a complete waste of time, and only annoys me. If B&N is serious about the NOOK family being the premiere line of ereaders, they need to make it easy for us to find meaningful content, not just whatever they feel like shoveling our way. We're shopping, not feeding at the trough.

Reader 4
Banalbannach
Posts: 4
Registered: ‎05-21-2011
0 Kudos

Re: Parental Controls

 
Reader 4
Banalbannach
Posts: 4
Registered: ‎05-21-2011

Re: Parental Controls

I couldn't agree more. B&N bought Fictionwise, which had a wonderful search engine. With over 3 million titles, they need to privide methods to narrow search results. Adding the ability to exclude categories would help alot.
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