Embodiments of the invention include a set of rules established by a third-party to control the execution of various functions offered by a device. The set of rules can block a function outright, or can specify particular combinations of days and times when the function can be executed and when it is blocked. Then, when the user of the device requests an instance of the function to be executed, the set of rules can be accessed to determine whether the requested function instance is permitted, after which the device can either block or execute the requested function instance.