Myxer, Verizon Wireless back on track after ‘porno’ dustup : VZW allows access to mobile content provider after 8-month expulsion

Verizon Wireless customers can once again directly access services from mobile content retailer Myxer. The nation’s No. 1 wireless provider pulled its support of Myxer last summer, claiming the service was distributing porn and had failed to get proper licenses for other material.
Verizon Wireless dropped support of Myxer’s short code last year, forcing subscribers to use e-mail to access content instead of SMS. But Myxer this week trumpeted Verizon Wireless’ renewed support on its company blog, urging the carrier’s users to download content directly from Myxer’s site.
“These guys were banned for inappropriate content, specifically on two fronts,” Verizon Wireless spokesman Jeffrey Nelson said of the move to drop Myxer’s service. “One, they were purposing content that wasn’t theirs, they didn’t own it or have rights to it in the first place. Secondly, they were pushing porno. That is not the case now.”
Nelson declined to discuss details regarding both the alleged adult content and licensing issues.
Steve Spiro, Myxer’s VP of marketing, said any allegations of porn are “absolutely not true.”
“I don’t think either one of those (claims) is true,” he said. “‘Pushing porno’ seems like a pretty incredible statement. We review every single piece of wallpaper that comes to the site. . Anything that’s, in their words, ‘porno,’ never gets into our catalog whatsoever.”
And Spiro pointed to a copyright-protection program Myxer launched in March 2008 designed to give content owners “unprecedented visibility into and control over the flow of content through the Myxer platform.” The company follows the Digital Millennium Copyright Act “to the letter of the law,” Spiro continued, and gives content owners the ability to pull any content they have rights to.
Myxer launched in 2005 and offers a mix of premium, ad-supported and user-generated content. The company sees “4 to 5 million uniques every month,” according to CEO and founder Myk Willis, and in November surpassed the 15 million-user mark.
While Myxer’s sins may not have been all that egregious – the definition of “porn” can vary widely from one person to another, of course, and mobile content has been plagued with licensing problems for years – the eight-month rifts underscores the importance carriers continue to play in the space. Myxer boasts that 5 million Verizon Wireless customers use its service, and it likely saw a dramatic decrease in usage when the carrier made it more difficult for users to access Myxer ringtones and other goodies.
“We don’t have a direct relationship with them other than we allow their content to come through, as long is it is in synch with the kind of content our customers want,” Nelson said. (Myxer shares premium-content revenues with carriers but doesn’t share ad revenues, according to Spiro.) “Many people deserve a second chance.”