CYBERSPACE – The average consumer doesn’t expect to find companies such as Yahoo, Countrywide Mortgage, Georgia-Pacific, T-Mobile, State Farm Insurance, or Pepsi advertising in chat rooms that promote sex with minors – yet that’s precisely what has happened – and a $10 million lawsuit against Yahoo, accusing it of profiting from child porn instead of closing sites hosted on its servers, is the result.Once aware of what their advertising dollars were unwittingly supporting, the companies withdrew their banners from what they had thought would be educational chat rooms but, instead, proved to be entirely unsavory meeting places for men seeking young, often pre-adolescent, sexual encounters. As opposed to promoting educational advancement or hobby development, the rooms sported such unsettling titles as “9-17-Year-Olds Wantin’ Sex,” “Younger Girls 4 Older Guys,” “Girls 13 And Under For Older Guys,” “Girls 13 And Up For Much Older Man,” and “Girls 8 to 13 Watch Boys (In A Particular Sex Act).” Members of the Houston media who initially discovered the situation report that not only were men using the chat rooms in order to arrange sexual liaisons with minors, but also to use web cams to broadcast inappropriate images, and assist or encourage the youths in running away from home.
As expected, once this illegal and unsavory activity was brought to the attention of the authorities, legislative action was the first proposed response. “The law has not kept up with this type of criminal activity,” U.S. Representative Ted Poe observed to Houston media.
When the issue was brought to his attention, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales opined that “Short of changes in the law in Congress, we may be limited about what we can do in this area.” According to Gonzales, there are no laws currently available to justify the U.S. government’s closing of the chat rooms. However, the Candyman website was brought down by federal agencies in 2002 using pre-existing laws.
Charles Clickman, spokesman for Child Rescue Network, Inc. indicated a belief that the advertising made the rooms an increased draw and that the companies involved should “. do the right thing.” A statement from Pepsi, which had a Star-Wars themed ad for its diet soda at the entry to some rooms until alerted about their illegal nature, defended the company by pointing out that Pepsi was “…completely unaware that our advertisements were associated with these chat rooms in any way.”
The responses of other advertisers upon learning about the misuse of their advertising, varied. Countrywide Mortgage removed advertising from the rooms and claims to have taken measures to avoid similar situations in the future. State Farm Insurance not only removed all advertising from the chat rooms but also from all Yahoo sites and revealed that it would suspend all online advertising with the portal giant, “.until it provides us a detailed explanation of how this situation was allowed to happen in violation of our contract, and until we receive sufficient assurance that our advertising will never again appear on inappropriate sites.” Georgia-Pacific joined the insurance company in its plans to boycott advertising placement on Yahoo and in demanding an explanation.
Yahoo executives have remained silent except to issue a statement assuring the public that Yahoo’s Terms of Service do not allow illegal activities in spite of the fact its servers are hosting the chat rooms, and that, “Yahoo strongly supports law enforcements’ efforts to combat illegal activity on the Internet and works cooperatively with law enforcement to aid in their investigations.”
Yahoo’s income doubled to nearly $205 million during the past year, influenced in large part by online ads.
