Porn star promotion predicament leads to MySpace advertiser revolt

By Tom Tapp

Rupert Murdoch has a porn problem.

Hollywood WireTap.com reported yesterday that porn stars are using MySpace.com to promote themselves, sometimes to teenagers, sometimes on pages replete with ad support from corporations like T Mobile and Weight Watchers.

As a result, Weight Watchers has pulled its advertising from the site, which is owned by Murdoch's NewsCorp. "Our rep has issued an immediate order to pull our ads from MySpace," says Weight Watchers spokesperson Grace Ann Arnold. "We'll be reevaluating that buy." T Mobile is "working with MySpace to rectify" the situation, according to the company's Tom Harlin.

Both companies' advertisements were featured prominently on porn star pages. Each says it had language in its contract that should have prevented its ads from showing up next to content promoting explicit material. Despite phone calls, neither MySpace nor corporate parent NewsCorp has had any response to the story or these developments.

It all began with WireTap's discovery that dozens of porn stars are now using the site to promote themselves, much as bands do. These performers include Jenna Jameson, Tera Patrick and Nikki Benz. Even porn industry trade publication Adult Video News has a page. Many of these, like Patrick's, have links to the stars' official sites offering explicit imagery, videos and gadgets. All are popular with the kids who are MySpace's mainstay.

For example, MySpace does not divulge the number of "friends" each user has, but Jameson's 406,571 is surely far above average. Patrick has 56,688.

What's more, Jameson's page has postings from 16 and 17 year olds. Patrick's, 14 year olds.

One high school girl from Kentucky who calls herself "Pornstar" wrote on Jameson's page:

"...i want to be a pornstar when i graduate.. ive only got 4 more days!! then i begin trying to start my career as a pornstar."

All of this poses myriad problems for MySpace and corporate overlord NewsCorp, which paid $580 million for the site recently. Many of the site's 75 million users are ages 14-17. Obviously parents, already concerned about the site's alleged pedophiles, won't be happy with this newest twist.

Then there is the advertiser reaction. Alan Meckler, CEO of Internet research firm Jupitermedia Corp. told The Wall Street Journal last month that MySpace is pulling $156 million in yearly ad revenue. But The Journal also notes MySpace has struggled to attract name brand advertisers to most of the site's pages. Its porn star postings aren't helping.

Last week, Weight Watchers was featured at the top of Patrick's page. T Mobile was prominent on Jameson's. Neither wants to be associated with explicit content.

Weight Watchers says its ads were part of a buy across many sites. "There are networks that collect unused advertising space," says Arnold. "A company has an option to buy through these networks. You don't actually see the site list when you buy on one. They're supposed to abide by the language in our purchase agreement (which says) we're not supposed to be on user-generated sites...We didn't honestly know that our ad was being run on that page in MySpace."

T Mobile spokesperson Harlin says his company was in a similar predicament. "This story's brought an error to our attention," he says. "Advertisers can (specify) only PG-rated pages on MySpace and that was supposed to be the case with us. We had no idea we'd be popping up on these pages."

This highlights the problem of identifying the PG pages from those that are more explicit. Sorting such content from among the millions of pages on MySpace is difficult.

The Wall Street Journal reported recently on Photobucket, one company actively developing new methods of filtering for MySpace. But they're only so effective.

Writes The Journal's Julia Angwin:

...even though the basic elements of these Web businesses are computerized, no one has worked out an effective technology fix for the porn problem. Some scanning software has a hard time distinguishing between pictures of nudes and apple pie, and certainly can't make the subtle judgment calls required of Photobucket's human censors. Naked breasts partly obscured with tape? OK! X-ray-like images of sexual acts? Delete!

Related Links

Jenna Jameson MySpace profile
Tera Patrick MySpace profile
Adult Video News MySpace profile
Those who filter through child porn on MySpace (WSJ)
MySpace Bares All for Playboy (TMZ)