Apple OKs Cinemax app, despite anti-porn policy

A new app has arrived at the iTunes store that may violate Apple's own policy of keeping pornographic material off its app store.

The company has given its blessing to the Cinemax Max Go app, which provides on-demand access to movies and programming on mobile devices to the cable channel's subscribers. The app also includes a Max After Dark tab, which allows streaming of some of the channel's softcore programming, which helped earned Cinemax the nickname "Skinemax."

The app includes a disclosure that states users must be at least 17 years old to download the app because, among other things, it includes "frequent/intense sexual content or nudity." It also contains parental controls designed to prevent children from viewing racy material. However, as first pointed out by GigaOm, the programming being made available on iPads appears to violate Apple's own anti-porn policy.

Movies with titles such as "The Hills Have Thighs," "Bikini Jones," and "The Temple of Eros" are available under the tab. But Apple's App Store guidelines state that "apps containing pornographic material, defined by Webster's Dictionary as 'explicit descriptions or displays of sexual organs or activities intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings,' will be rejected."

Apple is notoriously strict about what type of content it allows on the App Store. The company has in the past banned apps that contained certain sexual material and at one point even rejected an app from Project Gutenberg because it provided access to the Kama Sutra.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs even reportedly told a customer asking about the company's porn policy that "we do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone. Folks who want porn can buy and (sic) Android phone."

Apple representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.