Yahoo! and porn - what's the big deal?
The internet media giant Yahoo! bowed to customer criticism on Good Friday when it agreed to remove all pornography from its shopping and auction channels, as well as reject similar advertising.
Yahoo! said its US site would take a few weeks to remove offending material but that it could still be on sale on its other portals around the world. Yahoo!'s individual country managers have been told to make up their own policy on porn matters, but it is unlikely they will fail to follow the lead of Yahoo! US.
Why was Yahoo! so keen on porn in the first place?
It was the money, stupid. Having been a victim of the current slump in online advertising sales, Yahoo! was hoping it could cash in on one of the internet's most profitable areas - porn.
When the world's media cottoned on to Yahoo!'s plan to expand its revenues from porn, the company initially came back with platitudes such as, "We're taking extra precautions by placing adult merchandise and products behind a secure firewall." To enter 'porn areas' Yahoo users would have to enter their credit card details and verify their age.
What happened?
Just two days after Yahoo! came out in defence of its controversial "Adult and Erotica" store featuring hard-core porn tapes, it caved in to widespread objections and said it would remove all pornography from its shopping and auction services. Within hours, much of the offending material was gone.
Jeff Mallett, Yahoo!'s president and chief operating officer, put a statement up on Yahoo's press website late Friday saying that, "While Yahoo! has offered controlled access to adult products available via the Internet since launching our commerce services more than two years ago, many of our users voiced concerns this week about some of the products sold by merchants on Yahoo! Shopping. We heard them and swiftly responded."
But why did Yahoo! back-pedal?
Because it received a barrage of criticism after the Los Angeles Times ran a piece saying Yahoo! was upping its carriage of porn. Yahoo! clearly didn't want a repeat of last year's Nazi memorabilia fiasco when the auction of weapons, uniforms and recruitment posters on one of its sites landed the internet giant in court, so it quickly did a u-turn to make sure it didn't get back into people's bad books. Yahoo was put in a glaringly uncomfortable spotlight.
The flap over porn came as Yahoo! faced increasing financial woes, staff discontent and headhunting troubles after a number of key executives have quit. It didn't need to become embroiled in a smear campaign.
In the end, it was easier for Yahoo! to simply pull the plug on porn.
Was Yahoo! right to ditch porn?
Morally yes, but commercially no. Yahoo! has been in the financial doldrums of late and with porn being such a strong revenue driver, this would perhaps be the kind of boost Yahoo! needed. A posting on the dot.com death website, Fuckedcompany.com, said it all: "They would have made a shitload of money and the complainers would have stopped caring after two weeks."
