Fergie's Tech Blog

Update: Yahoo! shuts door on dodgy chatrooms

John Oates writes in The Register:

Yahoo! has pulled the plug on user-created chat rooms in the US with apparent child sex content after major advertisers withdrew their ads.

The change of heart came after an exposé by a Houston TV station which revealed Yahoo! was hosting chat rooms with titles including "Girls 13 And Under for Older Guys" and "9-17-Year Olds Wantin' Sex". The TV station found chat from men seeking children for sex.

On Friday last week Yahoo! stopped users from creating their own chat rooms. A statement on the site said the service was unavailable while Yahoo! worked on improvements and on making it compliant with Yahoo's terms of service.

Update: More information from an AP newswire article by Greg Sandoval on ABC News:

Reacting to angry protests from several of its top sponsors, Yahoo Inc. has pulled the plug on perhaps hundreds of chat rooms operating on its site after a media report revealed that some of the rooms were used to promote sex with minors.

Companies such as PepsiCo Inc., State Farm Insurance and Georgia-Pacific Corp. stopped advertising on Yahoo after they were informed that adults were attempting to lure children into sexual encounters within some of Yahoo's user-created chat rooms, according to a report by KPRC-TV in Houston.

posted by Fergie @ 6/22/2005 07:23:00 PM