[00:00.00]From VOA Learning English, [00:07.11]this is the Technology Report in Special English. [00:11.62]Public health officials say tobacco companies [00:18.60]are avoiding a worldwide ban on advertising tobacco products [00:24.17]to young people by using smartphone applications, or "apps." [00:28.54]The officials say some of the apps are designed [00:31.58]to persuade young people to start smoking. [00:39.20]Armando Peruga works for the World Health Organization's Tobacco-Free Initiative. [00:44.15]He recently discovered one such pro-smoking app online. [00:48.41]"I was taken aback by a game that is called‘Puff, Puff, Pass,' [00:51.32]which is (an) application that's a cartoon game where [00:56.72]the user must click on game characters to order them to smoke [00:59.28]and pass the cigarette to the other characters. [01:02.49]And the user collects points if he or she [01:06.54]continues passing the cigarette in the same sequence at a fast pace. [01:10.69]Obviously, that can only be directed at very young kids." [01:15.14]Millions of people around the world now have smartphones, [01:17.49]and many of them are children. [01:23.76]Researchers in Australia searched the Apple and Android app stores [01:29.81]using words like "smoke," "smoking," "cigar," "cigarette," and "tobacco." [01:34.63]They found more than one hundred apps linked to those words. [01:40.93]The apps included not only games and social utilities, [01:44.09]but advertisements for tobacco products, [01:48.84]and information about where the products could be purchased. [01:53.24]Forty-two of the apps were from the Android store. [01:57.90]Together, they had been downloaded six million times. [02:03.03]The most popular Android apps were those that simulate smoking. [02:06.87]The apps let users smoke a virtual cigarette [02:11.48]and produce visual effects of the cigarette being burned and smoked. [02:16.29]Some of the simulation apps claim to aid in quiting smoking. [02:22.71]Armando Peruga said the names of some of the apps are very misleading. [02:29.73]"These apps -- which are, the study identified about a hundred seven [02:35.78]of these pro-smoking apps -- are classified [02:39.64]under names such as health and fitness [02:42.09]and just...games which are very misleading, [02:45.68]and anyone can access, especially young kids." [02:52.25]The Australian researchers believe these pro-smoking smartphone applications [02:59.09]violate the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. [03:06.31]The convention bans all advertising and promotion of tobacco products in the media, [03:09.56]in countries that have signed the treaty. [03:17.32]The researchers say the app stores have a moral -- and possibly legal -- responsibility [03:20.60]to honor the convention and other laws [03:25.18]that ban the advertising of tobacco products to young people. [03:30.08]The report on pro-tobacco smartphone applications [03:33.88]was published in the journal Tobacco Control.

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