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Starbucks Is Blocking Porn On Its Wi-Fi Next Year

Today in “why wasn’t that already a thing?” news, Starbucks announces that they’ll be blocking access to porn via their free Wi-Fi starting in 2019.

It’s pretty insane that anyone is in public, looking at porn while posted up in their local Starbucks….but, weirder things have happened.

This latest decision to ban the ability to access porn sites on their Wi-Fi follows mounting pressures from the non-profit Enough Is Enough, an organization that lobbies to “make the Internet safer for families and children.” The same company pushed McDonald’s to filter adult content from its Wi-Fi back in 2016, and Starbucks previously promised to follow McDonald’s example–but up to this point, they hadn’t followed through. A petition to ban porn on Starbucks’ Wi-Fi was created by Enough Is Enough and ended up being signed by 26,000 people.

Enough Is Enough CEO Donna Rice Hughes commented on the situation in a statement, saying: “By breaking its commitment, Starbucks is keeping the doors wide open for convicted sex offenders and others to fly under the radar from law enforcement and use free, public Wi-Fi services to access illegal child porn and hard-core pornography.”

That leads to now, as the coffee chain is fulfilling its promise to block pornographic sites and content in their stores. “While it rarely occurs, the use of Starbucks public Wi-Fi to view illegal or egregious content is not, nor has it ever been permitted,” the company announced in a statement. “We have identified a solution to prevent this content from being viewed within our stores and we will begin introducing it to our U.S. locations in 2019.”

So if you’re heading to Starbucks for a day’s work or even just a cup of coffee anytime soon, you might wanna consider waiting until 2019.