Apple confirms MySpace ban in retail stores

In New York City, you can go to the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue in midtown 24 hours a day, seven days a week and browse the Web from the Macs on display. But due to a new Apple regulation, you can no longer access MySpace.com.

From a black MacBook laptop at the cube-shaped retail store on Friday morning, most Web sites were loading at full speed. But when an attempt was made to load MySpace's Web site, the Safari browser delayed and failed to load it. Indeed, a post Thursday night on the Apple rumor community ThinkSecret had said Apple was in the process of blocking the popular social-networking site from the Macs in Apple Stores because MySpace users were taking up too much time on the machines.

The 5th Avenue Apple Store in NYC

(Credit: Apple)

A statement from Apple Friday confirmed this. "Nearly 2 million people visit Apple stores every week," the statement read. "We want to provide everyone a chance to test-drive a Mac, so we are no longer offering access to MySpace in our stores." According to an Apple representative, the News Corp.-owned MySpace is the only site that has been blocked.

Representatives from MySpace were not immediately available for comment.

An Apple Store employee (who does not work in the Fifth Avenue store), confirmed to CNET News.com that this has been an ongoing problem. "MySpace is a big issue for the Apple stores because people come in, Photobooth themselves (using Macs' built-in webcams), then stick their picture up on their MySpace account and loiter at machines for hours," the source said in an e-mail. "It is especially troublesome at the flagships and high-volume stores, and for a while there was no official word on how to deal with it."

Heavy MySpace use was simply getting in the way of business. And with the impending launch of the iPhone, perhaps the most hyped Apple product yet, store traffic could reach a fever pitch.

The source went on to say that restricted Internet browsing is not an entirely new strategy for Apple's retail stores: the San Francisco Apple store had configured a few machines on display to only allow access to sites bookmarked by Apple, so the PCs would be available for demonstration purposes. The other machines had unrestricted Internet browsing enabled.

While MySpace is currently the only site blocked, according to Apple's official representative, the retail employee added in the e-mail that some stores voluntarily impose mild filters to block pornographic content. Blocking MySpace may help alleviate this, the source added, as "there are some more-than-R-rated MySpace photos out there."

[therearenorules]

WOOOO I'M SO HAPPY

YAYYYYYYYY!!!!!!

[AndyInTN]

It's about time.

I am so glad to see this. I was trying to help my sister in the Apple Store a couple of months ago. I wanted to show her the system she would be ordering. Instead I was only able to show her the basic iMac model but keep telling her the one she'd be getting was much faster and had a SuperDrive. The reason. All the other iMacs were in use. Guess which site they were on. MySpace.

[P288]

What they should tell you but don't...

Hundred bucks sez this has to do with TNB.

[Remaeus]

Not much of a story...

People can still access MySpace, and any other blocked site from anywhere, using things like MarioSurf MySpace Bypass and other site unblockers.

Of course, if they're going to start banning one website, why not others? I'm not sure why they do this, I mean it gets people into their stores, doesn't it?

[gbreed06]

Long over due!!!!!

My space has become a big wasteland. You go into an Apple store and all you
saw where people uploading thier pictures from photo booth or looking at other
my space pages. No interest in the systems or willing to learn anything.

[a-k-a-l-l-e-n]

oh....no wonder

I was wondering why I couldn't get on, but I didn't go in there for the sole purpose of putting my pic on Myspace... but it's their computers and internet, so do what they wish without complaint from me.

[rduffy12]

Ok.. this is weird

So I'm a Mac user, and I just started using MySpace today, and I'm a little
anoyed that I won't be able to at least check myspace in the Apple store like
some people like to do. I don't need to sit there for like 4 hours because I
can do photobooth at my house whereever I want. But one time i did spend
over an hour in the Apple store with my friend. we took 300 pictures of us in
photobooth and brought them all home and put them online. it was my first
time using one of the Macs with photobooth. actually it was the first time i
used a mac. 6 moths later im sitting in bed at 2 in the morning making crave
comments and making my myspace (its addicting) on my new macbook.
everybody where i live just goes to the public library and uses the imacs
there. the librarians yell at them because the sign says says "for parents and
students doing research." o yeah. they let you do whatever you want on the
boring windows comps but they yell at you if you do creative stuff on the
mac.

[Daler]

Too cheap to buy?

Apple staff should put an RFID tag on every visitor and log their time in the store. As each hour passes 'their' purchase prices increase by 2% to a maximum of 5 hours or 10%. If the prices are nuts to begin with, why not make them nuttier? At that point, the fat guy from the PC world (not at all affiliated with the magazine of the same name, but rather the unhealthy looking guy from the Apple ads that espouses the virtues of PC's) comes out of a closet (ya, we'll call it a closet) and tells the customer they can't buy Mac now, they gotta get a PC.

I think it'll work. Jeez.... too cheap to buy the stuff.

:)

[8ball629]

Gets them into the store?

To all of you people saying that this was a stupid idea because MySpace drives traffic to their store... you're so very ignorant and the very reason I stay away from MySpace.

Anyone that goes to a store to access a website is NOT interested in buying the hardware. They go there because they see it as a convenience for themselves by allowing them to USE something for free.

It is Mac's property (internet connection and hardware) so I say they should do anything they want and if blocking MySpace keeps all of the 14 year old emo kids out I say good for them. Too bad they don't have enough pull to shut the whole website down.

[superguy]

Time Limits

Even libraries do it. I hate myspace but find myself checking it out now and then. It's still a good way to keep in touch with old friends and make new ones... and it doesn't need to take hours.

[darrenkopp]

uh oh, this is gonna make macs look worse

if you can't look at myspace, what else is a mac good for?

[TrackStar1682]

A bit overboard

I can see Apple putting time limits on the machines or asking people to leave if they've worn out their welcome, but forbidding the site altogether? Not such a good idea. If Apple would use their brains just a little better, they'd see a way to turn something like Myspace into a sales tool. They could have a salesman show them how to photobooth themselves and put it online. A lot of people would get lured into buying one of Apple's computers if they were shown just how easy it was to do cool stuff like that. What's so wrong about a quick tap on the shoulder and being asked to leave if somebody is on the site too long?

[U. Tripps]

Hipsters can't enforce time limits

The problem with requiring Apple Store employees to enforce time limits is that they are hipsters. They will therefore quit if they are asked to do anything that makes them look either (1) assertive, or (2) like "the man." Passive aggressive site blocking without explanation is far more hip.

[sammyb33]

Make sense would be annoying waiting behind someone using the computer for Myspace.Glitter Graphics Myspace Stuff