iSpeak Dashboard widget mistaken for perverted pedophile?

When Pieter Hartzenberg started making widgets, he never imagined one of his widgets would be mistaken for a perverted hacker that had maliciously infiltrated a young boy's Mac. But Pieter's innocent iSpeak widget recently caused at least one concerned parent to fear the worst.

Pieter emailed us the details and also posted them on his blog today. Here's a copy of the note he received from the helpful Apple Retail employee who encountered the above-mentioned parent:

My name is Derek Rose, and I work at an Apple Retail store in Nashville, TN. Just wanted to let you know that I just had a customer come in to the Genius Bar with fears that they had been "Hacked" by your widget. I know that sounds silly, but the reason she thought that is because her young son downloaded the widget, and then when the widget said "Hey sexy, What would you like me to say?" she thought that some internet pervert hacker was talking to her son through the widget.

I just wanted to notify you of that issue, and maybe suggest you change the default text to something else, just because it will invariably be used by other kids, and other parents may find it inappropriate as well. I was able to change the default text in the JS file for this customer, but just wanted to let you know about that interesting visit from the customer. :)

In spite of - or perhaps because of (?) - the potential for confusion surrounding this widget, it's been on Apple's own Top 50 Downloads list for 2 weeks, in the top 10 for most of that time, and currently appears on the Staff Favorites list on Apple's Dashboard homepage. The word "sexy" is no longer spoken unless you type it in yourself.

Thanks for the Sunday morning laugh, Pieter!