No puns or clever lines where this story is concerned. Too sad, too sorry, too sullied, too sick.

Leading European mobile operators [yesterday] signed in Brussels an agreement on how to protect minors using mobile phones. This agreement, brokered by the European Commission, responds to the findings of the Commission's public consultation on child safety and mobile phones published today. In the agreement, mobile operators undertake to develop self-regulatory codes by February 2008.

"This agreement is an important step forward for child safety," said Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner responsible for Telecommunications and Media, yesterday. "I congratulate the mobile phone industry for moving towards protecting minors. It shows that responsible self-regulation can work at European level. The Commission will monitor very closely the effective implementation of today's agreement, for which the deadline is February 2008."

Following Mrs Reding's initiative, leading mobile operators will safeguard children by joining a ‘European Framework on Safer Mobile Use by Younger Teenagers and Children’. In this new text, operators agree to support:
• access control for adult content;
• awareness-raising campaigns for parents and children;
• the classification of commercial content according to national standards of decency and appropriateness;
• the fight against illegal content on mobiles.

The signatories of the ‘European Framework on Safer Mobile Use by Younger Teenagers and Children' are: Bouygues Telecom, Cosmote, Debitel AG, Deutsche Telekom Group, Go Mobile, Hutchison 3G Europe, Jamba! GmbH, Mobile Entertainment Forum, Orange Group, Royal KPN N.V., SFR, Telecom Italia S.p.A, Telefonica Moviles, S.A., Telenor, TeliaSonera and Vodafone Limited.

Now what will you buy them next Christmas? And if you don't, who will?
Jim Chalmers