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Kindle Unlimited porn discovered by parents; Apple ‘shared concerns’

Parents of preteen boys have reported finding explicit Kindle Unlimited porn included in the books available through Amazon’s unlimited e-book reading subscription service …

What is Kindle Unlimited?

Kindle Unlimited is a $9.99/month subscription service that gives access to more than 1.5 million e-books on a Kindle device or app. You can borrow electronic copies of up to 20 books at a time, returning them when you finished reading them.

While Kindle Unlimited was originally limited mostly to self-published books of varying quality, it now includes many professionally published titles, including some bestsellers.

Authors enrolled in the scheme receive a payout dependent on how many people read their books. There have been a number of scams, such as putting a link at the start of a book that jumps to the final page, triggering a full payout. Amazon blocked those, but it seems scammers have come up with a new idea.

Kindle Unlimited porn discovered

Reuters reports that some of the titles included in Kindle Unlimited were found to comprise nude photos. While Kindle devices would display only grayscale versions, full-color photos can be viewed in the Kindle app on Apple and Android devices.

[Subscribers could] access and view online volumes of photographs of naked women, with titles such as “75 hot fully nude photos of a young blonde” and “Real Erotica: Amateur Naked Girls – Vol. 4″. Some appeared to show women and men engaging in sexual acts.

Two families who encouraged their preteen sons to use the service to encourage them to read more apparently found that their kids were using it for education of another variety.

Reuters learned of the issue when two families told Reuters their pre-teen sons downloaded the explicit material via Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited e-book subscription service and viewed the full-color photographs on the Kindle iPhone app. 

Amazon, Apple, and Google alerted

Reuters reported the issue to Amazon, Apple, and Google. Amazon said that it took the issue seriously, was investigating, and will take appropriate action. Apple said it had shared its concerns with Amazon.

We’ve shared these concerns with the developer and are working with them to ensure their app is compliant with our guidelines.

Google issued a similar statement about the Android app.

Photo: @felipepelaquim/Unsplash

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Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Ben Lovejoy

Ben Lovejoy is a British technology writer and EU Editor for 9to5Mac. He’s known for his op-eds and diary pieces, exploring his experience of Apple products over time, for a more rounded review. He also writes fiction, with two technothriller novels, a couple of SF shorts and a rom-com!


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