Query Donna Rice: don't drink, don't smoke, what do ya do? goodie-goodie two-shoes ---- [snipped] http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/14/technology/14YAHO.html April 14, 2001 After Complaints, Yahoo to Close Access to Pornographic Sites Faced with a flood of criticism from users, Yahoo, the vast Internet service, reversed a longstanding policy and said yesterday that it would remove a wide range of pornographic material from its site and make other such information harder to find. The company also said it was moving to restrict what it termed "inappropriate material" from home pages created by its members of its Geocities service. Yahoo said it would make it more difficult to use its popular search engine to find listings for pornographic Web sites. Yahoo's online shopping area had links to about 100 Internet stores selling pornographic videotapes and DVD's. As in all sections of Yahoo's shopping area, merchants pay a commission of 2 percent of their sales. To get to the adult area, users needed to verify that they were above 18 by entering a valid credit card number. Many of the e-mail messages complaining about Yahoo were prompted by a campaign by a coalition of anti- pornography groups led by the American Family Association of Tupelo, Miss., according to Donna Rice Hughes, an anti-pornography advocate and member of the coalition. Yesterday, Ms. Hughes praised Yahoo's move. "The good news is that after the backlash they received that they have chosen to reverse their decision to sell pornography," Ms. Hughes said. "But I would like to see them go further." She pointed to home pages and chat rooms that have pornographic information. Jeffery Douglas, the chairman of the Free Speech Coalition, the trade association of the pornography industry, called Yahoo's move an "overreaction." "There is nothing illegal, wrong or fattening about purchasing routine adult material made for and by consenting adults," he said. He said that the Internet was a particularly appropriate medium for the distribution of sexually related material as consumers risk neither offending nor being embarrassed by others who might otherwise observe, say, rentals of pornographic tapes in a local video store. "The Internet allows people to explore their own sexuality and their own fantasies without hurting or intruding on anyone," he said.