Playboy sues AOL with the breast lawyers in town

It looks like AOL is facing a hefty lawsuit over possible trademark infringement - but this time, it's not men in grey suits that will be sitting in the dock. Instead, walking Viagra advertisement Hugh Hefner, and his well-endowed, scantily clad friends, will be taking the legal action over claims that the ISP is tarnishing the Playmates' immaculate reputation by associating them with inferior products.

Playboy's decision to prosecute stems from objections over pop-up ads from the ISP's Netscape browser. Any web users who typed Playboy or Playmate - trademarks of Hef's porn empire - into Netscape's search engine were presented with pop-ups that imitated the Playboy style, but weren't official Playboy merchandise.

The terms were included in a list of 400 words that would bring up ads featuring 'adult' material.

Apparently, the legendary jazz mag feared that the unofficial products and - ahem - services could damage the Playboy reputation for producing only the finest one-handed literature items.

The man with a girlfriend for everyday of the week and a fondness for silk smoking jackets is also suing Excite for similar offences, despite the fact the ISP has since gone bankrupt.