Yahoo Shuts Down Chatrooms

Posted on June 24, 2005

Yahoo Inc. has closed all of its user-created chat rooms this week after three advertisers found their online ads running alongside discussions of sex with children. Georgia-Pacific spokeswoman Robin Keegan told the L.A. Times, "We were horrified." The company pulled all its Yahoo ads and has yet to return.

More companies could pull their ads from similar "bulk web buys" when they start exploring where they ads are appearing. The L.A. Times story explains that often companies simply purchase the ad with the knowledge that it will target a specific keyword and appear on hundreds of thousands of websites, chats or blogs without looking specifically at all of the blogs, discussion boards or chatrooms their ad is running on.

Some advertisers, however, are realizing just how little they know about what their money is getting them. Users contribute all or most of the content at many increasingly popular types of sites, including discussion boards, social-networking companies and blogs.
Most companies have little control over where their ads run because they buy online ad space in bulk through brokers who purchase spots on various websites. Individual ads often are placed by computer programs that match up keywords so that, at least theoretically, car ads pop up in discussions about cars.

Internet advertising leaders like Google and Yahoo may find themselves having to find a way to filter out the unwanted content in order to keep some of their advertisers. The problem for ad networks is that the chatrooms and discussion forums tend to generate a lot of the pageviews advertisers are looking for.

YAHOO