Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX) has announced that the coffee chain will be blocking porn on its free WiFi starting next year, which begs the question–how come this hasn’t happened yet?
The company had already made it a rule that viewing porn in one of its locations over its free public WiFi network was a violation of its internet policy. Nevertheless, the move was not enough to stop guests from using the company’s network to browse pornography.
A Starbucks representative has said that in order to stop its customers from viewing pornographic content within its stores, the chain will make an effort to block such content from its U.S. locations in 2019. The move was a response to a petition created by internet-safety advocacy group Enough is Enough, asking the coffee giant to address the problem.
The petition has garnered more than 26,000 signatures already. The move was the second attempt by the advocacy group to get Starbucks to fix the porn problem as Enough is Enough created a porn-free campaign back in 2014, which Starbucks failed to respond to.
The coffee chain then sent a letter to the advocacy group in 2017, which stated that it was seeking for a global protocol designed to address pornographic content in its stores soon.
SBUX stock is up about 0.4% during regular trading hours on Friday.
