Google Chrome Could Soon Block Mature Extensions on Child Accounts

Google Chrome browser could soon receive new filters that would technically block the installation of extensions and themes rated as “mature” when child accounts are used.

The discovery made by ChromeStory indicates that the browser will also prevent the installation of mature add-ons in case of student accounts, albeit for the time being, no further specifics are available.

“Child users can never load and enable mature extensions and themes after this CL, even with parental approval. There’s no way to ask for parental approval in the first place. The blocking only works for extensions and themes marked Mature in Chrome Web Store (CWS). Note that child users can still see mature extension detail pages in CWS,” a code change in the Chromium Gerrit reveals, as per the cited source.

Mature and not mature content

So what exactly does mature add-ons actually mean?

According to Google’s guidelines, mature content  includes close-up images of people wearing thongs, apps with sexual themes like adult “Truth of Dare” apps, and sex position apps with no porn, but has detailed descriptions.

“Apps that focus on sexual content or sexually suggestive content should be rated “Mature.” For example, an app that is a collection of images of men or women in lingerie posing suggestively should be rated “Mature.” Note that pornography and sexually explicit content are not allowed in the Chrome Web Store,” Google itself explains.

On the other hand, Google says that images of people kissing and hugging will not be rated as mature, and so will dating apps that are not focused on sexual relations.

At this point, an ETA as to when the new parental controls could go live aren’t available, but it’ll obviously take some time for Google to complete the development and release them to production builds of the browser.