Although Yahoo has limited risque advertising and sales of pornographic products on its US-based site, such ads and products are only a click away on some of Yahoo's international sites, including the Australian & New Zealand portal, which is still supporting two long-standing adult advertisers.
The issue highlights the difficulty of creating a corporate-image policy for global online businesses, and has led some critics to say Yahoo appears to be backtracking on promises to clean up its site.
Criticism over Yahoo's policy coincides with the company's attempts to bolster flagging revenues during a harsh online advertising downturn. It also underscores some of the potential pitfalls for global businesses on the Internet.
A person in the United States can't "see" what's being sold or rented in an overseas store, but they can "click" to an overseas site from their office. Additionally, the fact that the site may be in a foreign language isn't an issue when it is an image that may be found objectionable.
"On the Internet, it's only a click away," said Pam Kline, a partner with corporate consulting firm The McKenna Group.
Yahoo says the overseas adult material is consistent with its statement in April, when the company announced it was banning adult-related merchandise from its "network." A representative said that the company only intended to bar the material on the US site.
It was a response to declining ad revenue that promted Yahoo to consider increasing the promotion of adult-themed products, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times in April. Athough the company beat Wall Street's earnings expectations in recent quarters, its revenue and earnings have been down significantly from last year.
Australian experience
In the United States, Yahoo's auctions and stores are mostly clear of pornographic materials. A search for "sex" yields banners advertising debt consolidators, credit card companies and an online casino, not adult sites.
In Australia, the campaigns have a "few more months to run", according to a spokesperson in Sydney.
"We're still running local campaigns until they run out," she said, adding that each country site will make its own decision on whether to pull porn from their site. She says the portal has not signed any fresh campaigns.
Searches for "sex" on Yahoo's German, French, Italian and Norwegian Web sites turn up similar banner ads, some with graphic depictions of sexual acts.
Industry analysts say that one reason that adult advertising works for Yahoo on its international sites is because the cultures may be more accepting of the ads, compared with more conservative values in the United States.
Yahoo is not the only US-based online company that has followed different standards abroad than they do at home. On the home page of its German site last week, Amazon.com promoted its "lust and love" store. The area, which includes a picture of a nude woman atop every page, offers books of erotic photographs, Playboy DVDs and racy comics.
Amazon does not offer "x-rated" material on any of its sites, company spokeswoman Margaret Dawson said. Although the products offered on Amazon's German site are similar to those offered on Amazon's US site, Dawson acknowledged that the company would not promote such products as prominently on its US site.
The differing policies illustrate the hazards of being an international online business, Forrester Research advertising analyst Jim Nail said. Companies such as Yahoo have to balance a desire to cater to local tastes and mores with the risk of offending or alienating their core customers back home, Nail said. In this case, Yahoo seems to be taking a "calculated risk," he said.
Additional reporting by Adrian Kerr, ZDNet Australia.
no one has to click on any porn on the net if there dont want to the mouse is not in cotrol you are