Walled garden (technology)

A walled garden, with regards to media content, refers to a closed set or exclusive set of information services provided for users (a method of creating a monopoly or securing an information system). This is in contrast to providing consumers access to the open Internet for content and e-commerce. The term is often used to describe offerings from interactive television providers or mobile phone operators which provide custom content, and not common carrier functions. [FT.com, [http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/c83365aa-6b96-11dc-863b-0000779fd2ac,s01=1.html How the ‘walled garden’ promotes innovation] , Thomas Hazlett, September 25 2007.] Another use of the term refers to quarantining malware-infected computers which exhibit symptoms of botnet activity in a way that the user can still access tools to disinfect the machine, usually with a Web browser. [ [http://www.maawg.org/about/whitepapers/MAAWG_Walled_Garden_BP_2007-09.pdf MAAWG Best Practices for the Use of a Walled Garden] , MAAWG whitepaper, October, 2007.] Yet another example is where an unauthenticated user is given access to a limited environment for the purpose of setting up an account - after they have done so they are allowed out of the walled garden. Some walled gardens are created and maintained by the use of firmware upgrades that wall-out alternatives (eg. Apple iPhone hacks).

Examples

Some examples of walled gardens:
* NTT DoCoMo's i-mode is a wireless Internet service popular in Japan and elsewhere.
* America Online. AOL started its business with revenue-sharing agreements with certain information providers in their subscriber-only space, but later offered general Internet access.
* Full Service Network. A pilot project from Time Warner in the early 1990s, this was an early interactive television system that provided residents of Orlando, Florida, access to online shopping, grocery order and US Mail Service.
* Infovía, a Spain-wide Intranet established by Telefónica in the 1990s. It connected content providers and modem users. Telefonica provided the connection between modems and server over its telephone and data networks.
* Most WAP services were originally set up as walled gardens.
* Apple's prevention of third party software on the iPhone in order to protect their revenue with agreed carriers, e.g. instant messaging and web phone software.
* Comcast technicians use the term Walled Garden when cable modems are not registered on the Comcast network.
* Optimum Online technicians use the term Walled Garden when cable modems are not registered in the IO Cablevision network.
* Virgin Media Technicians use the term walled garden to refer to the MAC Addresses of unactivated Cable Modems and set top boxes

References

Further reading