Russian iTunes now features music, movies … and porn?

Apple's new movie section on iTunes Russia is plastered with ads and banners that aren't safe for young, curious eyes.

A not-safe-for-work (NSFW) surprise awaits anyone who wanders into the virtual doors of Russia’s newly launched iTunes Store, specifically in the music and movies sections. According to social media reports by numerous users in Russia, a huge porn and escort bug is impacting the country’s iTunes Store; so big, in fact, that NSFW banners and ads are plastered all over the interface. 

If you’re in Russia, you better tell your kids not to aimlessly click around on iTunes, lest they end up in the “more films in different languages” tab where all the triple-x content is. Russian blog iPhones.ru suggests that the hilariously cringeworthy mistake – made doubly cringeworthy by the fact that the late Steve Jobs was known for squashing any attempt at selling porn at the App Store – was due to Apple using “.xxx” placeholder links. The thing is, it’s not exactly wise to use “.xxx” as a placeholder when .xxx websites actually exist.

We reached out to ICM Registry (where you can register .xxx websites), and Chief Executive Stuart Lawley gave us a better understanding of  how this snafu happened. “At first blush it appears simply to be an error on the site designer’s part that lists the URL “xxx.xxx” somewhere in the iTunes site,” Lawley said. “That of course takes surfers through to our “showcase” www.xxx.xxx, portal that highlights some of our developed sites.”

Although this certainly is the more visual of the two instances, this isn’t Apple’s first brush with porn. In Germany, Apple’s partner carrier, Deutsche Telekom, gave out a number for iPhone 5 preorders that connected callers to an adult dating hotline.