Yahoo! Backs Down On Porn
In response to angry e-mails, leading Internet portal Yahoo! Inc. announced it will remove pornographic products from its shopping, auctions and classified ads Web pages. The company also said it would stop entering into new contracts for banner advertisements for adult merchandise.
Earlier this week the company confirmed that it had quietly expanded its online offerings of x-rated videos. Yahoo had offered adult products on its shopping pages - where the company got a cut of the sales - for two years.
President and Chief Operating Officer Jeff Mallett said that Yahoo had not significantly increased its adult offerings in recent months, but rather created a new category for them on its shipping pages and tightened its access controls to keep children out.
But he admitted that the perception that Yahoo was promoting porn caused the change in policy.
"Our main concern is our users. Their opinion matters most," he told the AP. "It's not a case of what has changed or not changed."
The changes will be made in the U.S. over the next few weeks.
Yahoo claims to have 192 million registered users worldwide.
The porn brouhaha couldn't have come at worse time for the company. Online advertising - which generated 90 percent of last year's revenue - has plunged as a result of the dot-com bust. The overall slowing of the economy isn't helping either.
Once one of the most profitable Internet companies, Yahoo, is now struggling to make money. Wednesday the company announced it was laying off more than 400 workers - 12 percent of the work force.
The company has been involved in other controversies as well.
It's come under fire for hosting online chats by white supremacists.
And French groups sued to block Yahoo! from selling Nazi memorabilia on its auction pages.
The company wouldn't answer questions about whether the no-porn decision was made in light of all the other bad news.
But Mallet did acknowledge that "the spotlight is definitely on us."
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