By Stephen Schenck

Around here, we might all be fans of unlocks, jailbreaks, and pretty much anything else you can do to a phone to remove unnecessary limitations put in place by the manufacturer, carrier, or any combination thereof, but it’s clear those companies involved have very little interest in us being able to do so, some to the point of being openly hostile. Considering how much money Apple makes from its cut of sales through iTunes and its App Store, it shouldn’t be any surprise when the company acts in a manner consistent with protecting those interests. Still, might it be going too far in its latest action against jailbreaking, apparently blocking the word from anything sold through iTunes?

Apple users in the US have noticed that iTunes searches are now returning “j*******k” in place of the word “jailbreak”. We’re not talking just apps here, as songs and other media totally unrelated to smartphone hacking are seeing any mention of “jailbreak” scrubbed clean. To be fair, it’s not quite every mention of the word that’s getting censored, which makes it even more curious just what’s going on here. Apple also doesn’t seem to be doing the filtering on a global scale, as non-US iTunes users aren’t seeing the same thing.

Does Apple believe it can really get its users to stop thinking about jailbreaks if they don’t see the term mentioned so often? Won’t “j*******k” just draw more attention? We’d love to hear the company’s thoughts on this practice, or at least confirm whether or not it’s an intentional, official policy.

Source: Shoutpedia
Via: IntoMobile