
Titles give away how wrong they were...
By Elinor Mills
Published: 24 June 2005 08:25 GMT
Yahoo! has shut down its user-created chat rooms after a TV station reported that some of them were being used by adults to promote sex with minors.
The chat rooms were shut down in the last week but Yahoo!'s other chat rooms are still up, according to a Yahoo! spokeswoman.
The closed chat rooms had titles such as "Girls 13 and Under for Older Guys" and "Younger Girls for Older Guys", according to a report by KPRC-TV in Houston. Advertisers including Georgia-Pacific, Pepsi Cola and State Farm Insurance withdrew their ads after they found out they were appearing in the chat rooms, the TV station said.
The spokeswoman declined to confirm or deny the report, saying only that Yahoo! is "working on improvements to the service to enhance the user experience and compliance with our terms of service". She added: "Yahoo! condemns abuse of internet tools and services for illegal activities."
She could not specify how many sites in total were shut down.
A spokesman for Pepsi Cola confirmed the KPRC report.
"We were notified back in April by the Houston TV station that our ads were associated with these chat rooms. We were unaware of the situation," he said. "We worked with Yahoo! to pull them right away and they did."
Pepsi is still advertising on other parts of the Yahoo! website, the spokesman said.
Yahoo!'s user agreement prohibits users from harming minors in any way and from making any content available that is unlawful, obscene or objectionable.
Elinor Mills writes for CNET News.com
Responsible for producing consistent visual imagery throughout the web including online marketing activities - designing banner ads, emails and ...
The conversation is based on a chat style interface, therefore good typing skills are important together with a degree of technical knowledge and ...
Large Energy Corporation looking for a Project Manager from a Engineering/Construction background working on site at a power station.Phase 1 has ...
Agenda Setters 2009
Welcome to the ninth annual Agenda Setters poll – silicon.com's list of the top 50 most influential individuals in the technology and IT industries, from techies and CIOs to entrepreneurs and business leaders. Find out more in our latest special report.
Stories from the web...
Copyright © 2008 CBS Interactive Limited. All rights reserved. Top of page
Natasha Lomas Exclusive: Jimmy Wales on what's next for Wikipedia Why Wikipedia needs geeks and why a life unplugged is unthinkable
Peter Cochrane Peter Cochrane's Blog: United breaks guitars? Customer service has changed forever