In the down economy, startups are trying everything they can think of to keep a steady flow of revenue coming in. For popular live-streaming video site Justin.tv, it looks like one of these measures is to try to capitalize on its users’ frequent searches for porn: if you run queries for terms like “xxx” or “sex”, the site will automatically redirect you to a third-party pornography page.
Before users are redirected, they’re presented with a message for five seconds indicating that while Justin.tv has banned adult content, the site is sending them to “a site where you can find what you’re looking for”. The new “feature” may be flying under the banner of convenience, but the site is clearly looking for a new source of income. Justin.tv may well be having trouble coping in the current economy, and a porn affiliate pays far more than a blank search results page.
I don’t think there’s anything morally wrong with what Justin.tv is doing – it’s highly unlikely anyone is going to accidentally search the site for “xxx” and get offended when they’re sent to a porn site (though they might get annoyed). But the new ‘feature’ doesn’t gel with much of the content on the site, which features clips of puppies and video games on its home page. And the site should really include a page confirming that the user is over 18 before redirecting them (there seems to be no such confirmation found on at least some of the redirected porn sites).
Above all, I sincerely hope this isn’t the start of a new trend. I hate when sites redirect me without my permission, and fear that other startups could expand on this technique to include other search categories – how annoying would it be if a search for “soccer” sent users to Nike’s homepage? It may sound like an extreme case, but many startups are getting desperate, and a good user experience is often among the first things sacrificed as they try to stay afloat.
Update 2/19/09: CEO Michael Seibel says that Justin.tv has discontinued the practice.
While the goal of redirecting inappropriate search queries was to discourage this type of content on site, this solution has unfortunately created the misperception that we support or condone this content. As a result, we have decided to discontinue redirecting search queries to third party sites. The queries that were being redirected now return zero results.
Update: Justin.tv CEO Michael Seibel has sent us the following response to this story:
Justin.tv uses a variety of common tools to effectively reduce the
amount of inappropriate content on the site including: community-based
reporting, community admins, chat moderation and redirecting
sex-related search queries.Lets be clear, this isn’t the magical solution for monetizing Web 2.0,
these tools exclusively help us to improve the community experience on
the site.
speechless ……
Calm down, its not that bad. I see nothing wrong with this what so ever!
r u crazy?!? they’re redirecting underage kids to adult sites for $$$
Jerry, stop the spin man
no wonder you choose the monkey as your brand…you guys are clowns
porn $, come on now .. WOW!
I agree. However, I think the page would say something like:
“We noticed you are searching for something that we don’t allow. Would you like us to redirect you to a site which serves such content? Yes, No (warning, please do not enter if below 18)”
Now that would make it right, I think.
i gotta thank jtv for letting me watch most of the All Star game and festivities though! I’ll go crazy if they have an iphone app.
CoolJobsOnline
http://tinyurl.com/7uj5ay
WOW. Horrible. These guys are scum.
I disagree. Sex is what brought all of us into the world, what is so bad about watching people have sex? We are animals and breeding is what we do best.
If somebody’s searching for porn, you shouldn’t be surprised when they end up at porn.
I wouldn’t want to work IN the porn business, but I don’t see any problem with it; And if I had a lot of traffic coming to my site from people obviously looking for the stuff, I’d happily help them out while at the same time cashing in. If people want to moan, they should stop searching or stop their kids searching for porn, it’s not rocket science.
JTV Fail.
They must be running out of money
This is pathetic.
Just a few months ago, he was proclaiming about how he was going to change the world.
Now I guess peddling porn is close enough.
Anjali Sen
justin = deadpool…sign of desperation…porn $ is dirty
How so?
Porn is the biggest biz on the web
Sex is the driving force behind all of man kind…
Money is money and unless your looking for porn get over it cause you wont see it
“Porn is the biggest biz on the web”
You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re just repeating urban myths. Porn traffic might be large (not even close to being the biggest though) but the profits are simply not there.
Shockingly, making up your own urban myths doesn’t work either.
http://internet...statistics.html (potentially offensive content)
Excerpts from link:
* Every second:
- $3,075.64 is being spent on pornography
- 28,258 Internet users are viewing pornography
- 372 Internet users are typing adult search terms into search engines
* US porn revenue exceeds the combined revenues of ABC, CBS, and NBC.
* Daily pornographic search engine requests: 68 million (25% of total search engine requests)
Wow….
Seems like the biggest business on the internet to me…
And looky there… we have statistics to back it up
Not only is porn the biggest biz, but many major media technology and advertising innovations only occurred thanks to porn.
VHS accepted porn and thus became industry standard. (instead of Hi-8 and many others)
Popups anyone? (started with a porn advertiser)
It’s clear that sex drives the human race. Our DNA wants to make more DNA, after all!
j
Is this legal for them to redirect under age kids?
Why would it be illegal?
I’m not sure what the laws are with regard to that. Note that even Playboy doesn’t have an ‘under 18′ confirmation page.
Apparently when you search for “dull” and “pointless” on playboy.com, you get directed to justin.tv.
+1
Kinda late with this, but, good one Dom!!!
*****(5 stars!)
dirty guys….come ‘n now….
Caught red handed w/smoking gun ~
found this on YouTube
http://www.yout...h?v=Hr5pzUrGv-k
The Justin.TV guys are pretty clueless in general. Has anyone seen any of their tech presentations?
http://code.goo...m/p/twicecache/
Really? A “high performance” cache written in Python?
Our site does hundreds of millions of dynamic pageviews a month running on a RoR backend with not that many servers. I know for a fact we have greater CPU efficiency than many other websites out there because of our caching technology. Happy to discuss any time if you’d like details.
dude, still have that camera on your head?
omg, that is funny
Dood, caching was secret sauce in 1996, not in 2009…
I don’t know what “A “high performance” cache written in Python?” is, but don’t you wish you had their traffic?
I guess you missed the memo, youtube is largely python.
Justin.tv is still around? I thought they died
http://www.quan...t.com/justin.tv
While I think there should *definitely* be a confirmation page in between, there’s nothing really wrong with this in theory.
The problem would lie in what search terms they redirect. “Porn” and “XXX” are pretty obvious in their intent but what about more ambiguous terms?
I just tried searching using the keyword “sexy” and was redirected. That crosses the line IMHO, but I’m certainly not *offended* like some people are.
when you type ‘xxx’ or ’sex’ into google pornhub is the top result for both how do they do this competing against so many millions of sites???
Pretty easy when you got millions of hit per day, and also a good job on SEO.
I just tried it. It’s true.
Disappointed….
My favourite quote: “it’s highly unlikely anyone is going to accidentally search the site for “xxx” ”
So how exactly did you discover this Jason? haha
like how TC gets all of its articles….from sources….
LOL Michael!
Haaaaaaaa!! LOL! Micheal!!!!!!!
The website just gave its users their requests and do so while monetizing it. There’s definitely nothing wrong with that, it’s not like they’re doing porn.
techfilipino
Agree. All the TC posters bitching about “monetizing” Here’s one start-up doing so and they still bitch. Whats up with that?
Please – get over yourself. Horrible? Really?
Your surprised people search for sex on a video site? You’re speechless? Tell me you didn’t search for Salma Hayek’s boobs last week as soon as you heard about her breastfeeding. Yeah you did, you sicko!
I say bravo. Good for Justin.tv for making some cash, and good for the user who wants to see some ass.
btw, I’m the community manager for Adult FriendFinder. Send em on over, we’ll give them what they want too.
There are probably plenty of shows with “sex” or “porn” in their names that aren’t actually explicit (talk show? funny title for nerd show?) . So, I do think you could unintentionally cum upon this link.
Get it?
I used Justin.tv for an auto racing Webcast (copmagnet.com) and thought it was a great idea, but sometimes lacking in reliability.
I find this to be quite tasteless on their part.
dood, since when was web2.0 concerned with reliability? The proliferation of wankers with a website has definately helped the industry devolve.
I’m quite surprised they are sending their adult traffic to ONE specific site. I realize live adult chat sites are extremely lucrative. But why would you send adult search traffic to anything other than an adult search engine, such as fantasyfinder? If you’re gonna try to monetize your adult traffic, then do it right…
I am confused as to why people have a problem with this. It seems like they are providing their users what they are looking for. Isn’t that what the idea of a search engine is? It seems like a good idea to me.
Seems that Justin.tv is desperate for looking ways on how to survive in the world of Internet that’s why they engaged in this kind of thing.
低俗
Who the hell searches for “xxx”?
My search for “pagen tit fart” did indeed bring me elsewhere. A premium site. Mmm mmmmm.
There’s a reason why no ones really done this before. It’s because they’d rather avoid being seen as tasteless as Justin.tv appears right now.
For example why isn’t Amazon.com doing this when people search for certain things?
Once a site does porn, it dies. I was shocked to see this. Short sighted, omg
Agree Jason.
Any site could do this in the search, but no one does because it is extremely tasteless.
Probably because you can buy porn on Amazon.
Amazon isn’t the genius shop of the web for nothing.
Their ‘porn’ is merely ‘educational’ to smooth off the offensive vile edges so mainstream vanilla types don’t feel dirty and satanic when they need help figuring out fellatio and anal sex.
Thanks for the tip on what to search for on Justin.tv. I’m sure it’ll make them a lot more money now! Is this part of your affiliate program with them?
But seriously, who cares.
Justin.tv should focus on preventing all the kids from getting on their web cams on their site. That’s much more gross.
I’d be really annoyed by this. If I want to do a general search for porn, I’d go to Google. If I search for it on Justin.tv it’s because I want to search Justin.tv’s site.
I think Justin.tv really lost their community. Right now its only web cam wannabes, while sites like Stickam and Ustream and Qik have the communities. I guess desperate times cause for desperate measures!
You said it. justin swapped community for foreign soccer content…they had a suicide too, right?
how said is a suicide
You bite your tongue Daniel. Bite it.
Justin.tv is reaching new lows. First they have that pseudo-porn on their site, then they had a police raid, then a kid killed himself on their site and their CEO issued a nonsensical statement and now this…
Just plain WOW!
Guys! Justin is a cool guy, and justin TV paved the way for livecasting. We are in a downturn, and people who want to see sex are redirected to some porn sites now. I guess its legitimate, calm down and be nice!
Remember the Justin.tv SEX TAPE
http://newteeve...intv-gets-lucky
Last gasps…
Why do you continue to cover this morans?
omg…this is shocking news!!
i’ve lost faith in justin.tv….leaving them for good
this is an ALL time new LOW guys. Benefiting from porn $ is UNACCEPTABLE! You lie to your users !?!
Outraged person is outraged.
Knowing how porn converts, they’re making pennies, if anything from this. trust me.
hahaha, porn converts very well. I know a bunch of guys who make a living off porn affiliate programs, its not hard to do…
Yes, it converts well, if you have tightly niched site, but them just seeing all their porn searchers to 1 site? Trust me, it converts horribly.
Now if you have just 1 site about BDSM, or ladygirls or whatever, then yes of course it will convert well. I, myself am making a living from this.
If this were anything other than porn I doubt many people would even raise an eyebrow. Whether you like it or not, sex sells. While a bit hypocritical of JT, by no means illegal.
ZOMG! THE INTERNET IS NOW BUTTHURT THAT A FREE SITE IS TRYING TO MAKE MONEY!!!
I SEE THE WHAAAAAMBULANCES ROLLING NOW!
Oh my goodness!!!! How terrible that they are sending people that are searching for porn to porn websites! God forbid somebody entering the search term “brazilian fart porn” gets sent to a porn website.
You are all very quick to throw stones, but have you ever thought of where your money might be coming from? Sure, John Doe, the kind soul next door might be your customer. But how do you know he didn’t obtain his money through sex, drugs, or house? (sorry…had to throw that in there haha) Just because there is a buffer between you and dirty money doesn’t make you completely innocent either.
One would expect a ton of porn-related searches on justin.tv, and I see no reason for them not to monetize this somehow. But automatically redirecting users (with or without a splash screen) is a tad too intrusive – wouldn’t CPC or affiliate links do the same job, yet without drawing so much attention?
What’s Justin.tv..?
This is quite the idea, maybe I’ll do something similar when I’m out of funner get-rich-quick schemes.
A little question to the group: why is it important that they have an “Over 18″ warning? Little kids don’t “accidentally” search for something like “big tits”; if they want to see it they’ll just lie about their age. It’s just an annoying useless piece of code that far too many sites are guilty of. Kind of like Vista’s “Are you SURE you want to do this?” repetitive stuff that encourages frantic clickthroughs that leads to more trojans and so on.
Speaking of useless scripts… who uses JavaScript for simplistic forms like this one? Ah well, such are the joys of using NoScript.
they’re STILL DOING IT! I just checked and typed in “sex” and was redirected to a porn site….yucky!
no shame, these guys have no shame….
porn $ is like drug $ or like terrorist $
Dude, you got some serious perspective issues you need to work out.
I have never been to Justin.tv before until just now.
It does not advertise sex/porn/adult video content.
It does not have a msg that it does not support
sex/porn/adult video content.
People are/get curious while on the website to search and see “something” new, if/when they get bored or aroused.
No further comment-
LOUD NOISES!
I just search jtv for “gay news stories” and they redirecting me here??? No warning or anything
no one cares…justin is old news…site is lame
Doesnt suprise me with the way the economy is goin right now…
Some search engines used to do this way back when. I think when you did a porn-ish search on Altavista, it would redirect you to nightsurf.com (I think?).
Perhaps they could publish the list of words that redirect users to the porn site. Would it include parts of chickens “breast” or mens’ names “Dick”?
Type “dance” and you get live chat with “Che che the Philipina hostess”, without any redirection.
It leaves me wondering who justin.tv’s target users really are.
Unless they get some focus back, justin.tv is doomed.
I don’t understand that’s the fuss all about?
I didn’t see any nudity in the link they used.
By the way, what is the different between young surfer that searching for xxx in Google and getting the content they are looking for. Same thing.
It’s a smart strategy! Good for them!
Wow, I had no idea TechCrunch readers had such an aversion to erotica!
I would wager that 30-50% of traffic on any popular tech news site, such as this one, will include conservative and mainstream folk who tend to be stymied and frightened by evolutionary urges you and I simply enjoy.