Caught in the crossfire are several adult performers, who say their Yahoo groups were erased without merit.
Flower Tucci, KSEXRadio host and star of Showtime’s “Family Business,” said that her Yahoo group was taken down without warning, erasing a database of 4,000 fans.
“Of course there was no child pornography there,” she told XBiz, “but they [Yahoo] had been sued, and they were scared.”
Yahoo was sued last month on behalf of a victim of molestation whose predator had allegedly stalked the child through a Yahoo group called Candyman. The Virginia-based National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, as well as other watchdog groups, had fought to persuade Yahoo and other portals to better police their sites against child exploitation.
In addition to the $10 million suit, Yahoo faced the withdrawal of advertising from major sponsors like Pepsi, State Farm Insurance and Georgia-Pacific.
Yahoo closed its user-created chat rooms Thursday, saying it needed to perform maintenance on its servers. It had admitted that it did not monitor its chat rooms.
A spokesman for Pepsi, which advertises on other parts of the site, had learned from a TV news report that Yahoo had been hosting sites linked to child porn. "We worked with Yahoo to pull [Pepsi’s advertising] right away and they did," the spokesman said.
"The specific reason for the closure notwithstanding, this is a positive step in the online fight against child exploitation," Michelle Collins, director of NCMEC’s exploited children unit, said. The Center also has offices in Irvine, CA.
NCMEC’s recent campaign aimed at educating adolescent girls about the dangers of chat room stalkers is receiving donated airtime on TV and radio stations across the country.
Numerous adult performers have Yahoo presences, and the recent closures has many considering a move to their own blogs or other free portals like MySpace.