Sept. 9 - 10, 2013 San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Search and mobile superpower Google is working on new technology that would effectively purge all images of child pornography and abuse from most of the Web.

Google disclosed new efforts to fight online child exploitation in a blog post yesterday. The company committed $5 million to “eradicate child-abuse imagery online” and started a $2 million Child Protection Technology Fund to encourage the development of better tools to destroy child porn.

While money allocations to the cause are important, the technology Google is building to combat child porn is even more so. Google is working on a new database of flagged images of child porn and abuse that can be shared with other search engines and child-protection organizations. The database will help create systems that automatically eliminate that sort of content.

“Recently, we’ve started working to incorporate encrypted ‘fingerprints’ of child sexual-abuse images into a cross-industry database,” Jacquelline Fuller, the director of Google Giving, wrote in the blog post. “This will enable companies, law enforcement, and charities to better collaborate on detecting and removing these images and to take action against the criminals.”

If the database is effective, any flagged image would not be searchable through participating search engines or web-hosting providers. And maybe best of all, computers will automatically flag and remove these images without any human needing to see them.

Google hopes the new database is operational in less than a year, according to The Telegraph.

“This announcement is inspiring for those who are at the forefront of tackling child sexual-abuse content,” Susie Hargreaves, the chief executive officer of the Internet Watch Foundation, told The Telegraph. “We know that the best way to tackle what is some of the most horrific content online is by working with others from all over the world to combat this on a global platform.”

Google logo photo via John Koetsier/VentureBeat

Sept. 9 - 10, 2013 San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Updated at 1:10 p.m. PT with Apple’s response to the issue.

Apple is deleting emails sent from iCloud accounts containing the phrase “barely legal teen,” a sign the company is still strictly distancing itself from pornography and adult material.

The deleted emails issue, which Macworld first revealed, coordinates well with Apple’s history. Apple has removed and rejected several apps from the App Store because they were too pornographic, and it recently removed the 500px app because it was too easy to find adult images.

The phrase “barely legal” is often associated with pornography, but it doesn’t necessarily have be used in that context. For example, an Infoworld reader said he had “barely legal teen” inside a screenplay he had attached in an email and that it would not send.

I confirmed that iCloud is deleting emails such as this by sending an email to myself from an iCloud email account. Here’s what I sent to myself:

That email did not go through. But when I sent the same email without the phrase “barely legal,” it sent just fine.

The phrase “barely legal” does go through on iMessage and through regular email accounts that are sending from Apple devices. It appears to only affect people using an iCloud email account. There’s no telling what other questionable phrases have been blocked as well.

Apple’s iCloud terms and conditions appear to give Apple the authority to do what it wants with content sent from iCloud (emphasis ours):

You acknowledge that Apple is not responsible or liable in any way for any Content provided by others and has no duty to pre-screen such Content. However, Apple reserves the right at all times to determine whether Content is appropriate and in compliance with this Agreement, and may pre-screen, move, refuse, modify and/or remove Content at any time, without prior notice and in its sole discretion, if such Content is found to be in violation of this Agreement or is otherwise objectionable.

Apple told Macworld today that it is a spam filter issue, rather than a censorship issue.

“Occasionally, automated spam filters may incorrectly block legitimate email,” an Apple spokesperson said. “If the customer feels that a legitimate message is blocked, we encourage customers to report it to AppleCare.”

However, even if this is really the case, it’s disconcerting to know that any email with a questionable or spam-like phrase will never be sent from an iCloud email account. And you aren’t even notified that the email did not go through to its intended recipient.

Tim Cook photo via lemagit/Flickr

Twitter-owned video sharing application Vine has raised its age rating from 12+ to 17+ following controversy surrounding pornographic clips shared widely on the service.

Vine is one of the hottest new video-sharing applications, and its quick rise in just a few weeks led to the ouster of rival app Viddy’s CEO. But Vine has had a problem with users submitting easily searchable clips of porn, which was highlighted when someone at Vine accidentally placed a hardcore porn clip to the top of every user’s feed. Twitter responded to that incident by making Vine porn harder to find.

But it looks like that wasn’t enough to please Twitter (and perhaps Apple, who has blocked certain iOS apps for making risqué images and videos available). Now Vine has been bumped up to a 17+ age rating, likely to make sure parents will know questionable content can be found on the service. When you download or update the app, it now warns that the app contains “age-restricted material” and says you need to be 17 or over to download it.

On top of bumping up the age rating, the latest Vine update adds sharing to Twitter or Facebook after you post to Vine. The update also lets users report or block an abusive profile and fixes bugs.

Check out some recent Vine videos below to get a feel for the uses of the service besides porn:

Time for a little Puppy Bowl action. vine.co/v/b106vu7w5jV

— Sean Ludwig (@seanludwig) February 4, 2013

Get off my pier. vine.co/v/bnB7WUW3XUv

— Buster Heine (@BST3R) February 4, 2013

Top image via Sean Ludwig/VentureBeat
Thumbnail image of sexy couple via lenetstan/Shutterstock

Twitter-owned video-sharing app Vine is taking steps to curb access to porn after it attracted a lot of unwanted criticism this morning for placing a hardcore porn video at the top of every user’s feed.

After a few hours with the video up and collecting a great deal of negative feedback, Vine removed the offending clip, and a Twitter spokesperson apologized for the “human error.”

“A human error resulted in a video with adult content becoming one of the videos in Editor’s Picks, and upon realizing this mistake, we removed the video immediately,” a Twitter spokesperson told VentureBeat earlier today. “We apologize to our users for the error.”

But now the service is doing more than just being more careful about its Editors Pick’s. Vine now blocks many searches for tags that might lead to pornographic videos, such as #porn, #boobs, #sex, and #booty. Searching for those terms brings nothing up inside the popular app.

While tags such as #nsfw and #pornvine are still searchable, it at least looks like Vine is beginning to take steps to make sure Apple doesn’t remove Vine from the App Store, like it did with 500px for pornographic images. Apple did, however, remove Vine from its list of Editor’s Picks today.

Vine was launched last week by Twitter and has attracted a lot of fans among the tech-enthusiast crowd. We’ll see if that enthusiasm holds up after this controversy.

Check out how some common Vine searches look now below:

Woman with eyes covered via MarcusVDT/Shutterstock

Updated at 7:38 a.m. Pacific with comment from Twitter.

Users of the popular video-sharing app Vine got a surprise this morning when a short clip of hardcore pornography appeared as an “editor’s pick” and placed at the top of every user’s feed.

Twitter launched Vine last week, and the new video app has attracted a lot of fans among the tech-enthusiast crowd. But since the service easily allows porn clips to be shared and found, some are wondering if Apple will take down the service; Apple has a history of removing apps that give access to adult material. Vine’s video slip-up today certainly won’t help matters.

As you can see in the picture above, a video titled “Dildoplay” with the tags #nsfw, #porn, and #nsfwvine was selected as an editor’s pick. Vine selects editor’s pick videos and places them in users’ activity streams presumably to show off the most creative uses of the service.

The video was up for a few hours, but it has since been removed from users’ feeds. Twitter blamed “human error” for the posting of adult content.

“A human error resulted in a video with adult content becoming one of the videos in Editor’s Picks, and upon realizing this mistake we removed the video immediately,” a Twitter spokesperson told VentureBeat via email. “We apologize to our users for the error.”

While the video did not play unless you tapped it, users were not happy about the prominent placement of porn in their feeds today.

Some choice comments from Vine users:

Taylor Winklemeyer: “I clicked on the video bc I thought the warning was a joke. I’m furious I had to see something like this.”

Brendan Wilhide: “First video I see after installing the app. How is this an editor’s pick?”

Curt Voice Allen: “This is garbage man! This should not be the first thing I see when I open this app. UNSUBSCRIBE ME PLEASE!!!”

Alessandro Melandri: “You must be crazy! Editor’s pick?!? Deleting the app now.”

Unofficially, the VentureBeat staff files any post related to sex under a nonexistent “PornBeat” category. But this doesn’t mean these aren’t legitimate tech stories. It does, however, mean that we’ve worked harder to legitimize sex-related stories by reaching out to the entrepreneurs or creators responsible — all of whom were very eager to chat.

The stories listed below don’t quite prove the old theory that pornography drives all technological advances, but they do show that wherever innovation thrives, you’ll find a pornographic application or element to it (aka the Internet’s Rule 34).

Bateflix: A Netflix search engine for finding nudity

Billed as Instant Watcher meets Mr. Skin, BateFlix provides you with a way to search for nudity within the films available on Netflix’s streaming video library. I reached out to the creator of the site, who said he was shocked more people weren’t using Netflix’s API to do interesting things like this. You can search for specific sexual acts, nudity of men or women, and more. It even has a rating system to tell you the quality of the movies in regard to the nudity.

PETA buys an .XXX domain, launches unsexy site

Animal-rights activist group the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) was among the first crop of organizations to stake its claim on a new .xxx top-level domain last year. The .xxx top-level domain is (in theory, anyway) intended to be popular among adult-focused sites that offer pornographic content, but that’s certainly not a requirement. This year, peta.xxx went live. It really, really was not all that sexy, according to VentureBeat’s Meghan Kelly.

Sex.com & Snatch.ly: Pinterest for pornography

Pinterest’s mega-growth in popularity spawned dozens of copycats and inspired many companies to apply its design principles to their own sites. As VentureBeat’s Sean Ludwig writes, Pinterest is largely popular with a female demographic, so a large opportunity exists to find a way to make it appeal to (more) men. Enter both Snatch.ly and Sex.com. Sean interviewed the founders of both sites about their decisions to become a “Pinterest for pornography.” Will they succeed? We’ll just have to check back in 2013.

3D printers and the future of sexy toys

By my observations, the advent of 3D printing technology (using plastic and other materials to create things from a device similar to how you would print a document) came with a gross overreaction that a flood of fake guns would overwhelm authorities. Fast forward months later and the news cycle has shifted to another touchy but far less violent subject: 3D printers and the sex toy industry. VentureBeat’s Ricardo Bilton interviewed the creator of MakerLove, a website whose operator posts sex toy designs for 3D printer owners to try out. It might seem like a ridiculous concept, but read the story: It’s much more clever than you might think.

Reddit tightens its rules on pornography

In February, community news-sharing site Reddit started to crack down on the underbelly of sexual fetish communities that had set up shop on the site. One of Reddit’s steps included banning anything that was questionably illegal, which was brought to a head by CNN’s Anderson Cooper calling out the JailBait subreddit for implying that it held nude photos of underaged teens. The site’s managers went back and forth on the decision a few times before ultimately deciding that it wasn’t worth ruining their reputation to keep it up.

A full eight months later, Gawker uncovered the identity of one of the unnofficial “police officers” of these seedy subreddits: Michael Brutsch, who went by the username ViolentAcrez on Reddit. In a followup interview, Brutsch proceeded to drag Reddit’s name through the mud, but the site’s previous stance on the issue gave it some protection against claims that Reddit proper was working to keep this questionably indecent sexual content flowing on the site. Reddit dodged a bullet for now, but sexual misconduct on community news sites is an issue we’re likely to encounter again in the future.

Microsoft bans pornography (and nudity) in the cloud

Did you know you’re not allowed to send or share anything with nudity on Microsoft’s cloud service, Skydrive? Well, you can’t, and the company routinely performs scans to ensure you’re not violating the rules, which it insists it does to prevent illegal activity. What’s worse, though, is if you get banned from your Skydrive account for breaking the rules, you also lose access to any other Microsoft service that’s connected to Skydrive (Outlook/Hotmail, Office 365, and so on). VentureBeat’s Sean Ludwig even put together a list of competing cloud services’ stances on sharing pornography and nudity.

Search.xxx: The Google of pornography search engines?

ICM Registry, the company responsible for managing the new .xxx top-level domain addresses, launched the pornography search engine Search.xxx back in September. We spoke to the ICM, and it said it intends to intends to make looking for online adult entertainment safer and easier to access. And if you’re managing a top-level domain targeted at the adult industry, such as .xxx, why not do something to cater to that specific client base? Check out the article for a full explanation.

Honorable Mention: Microsoft apologizes for sexing up the cloud (video)

In a world full of motion-sensing Kinect technology, iPhones, and smart thermostats, it’s hard to make something like a cloud-computing platform exciting. But that didn’t stop a European marketing firm hired by Microsoft from trying to make its cloud-platform Azure seem sexy at the Norwegian Developers Conference in Oslo earlier in the year. The marketing firm hired dancers and played an inappropriate, developer-related rap song that ruffled some feathers and prompted a public apology from Microsoft.

Robot bumping & grinding photo by Tom Cheredar/Flickr

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Google has modified its popular image search to block many explicit pictures, a move that could be a big win for competing search engines.

While you used to be able to turn SafeSearch off to easily find questionable material, Google now only lets you “filter explicit images” or “report offensive images.” As you can see in the image above, a search for the word “porn” brings up some questionable material but nothing explicit.

Users on Reddit first noticed the changes this morning, and several were quick to label the move as “censorship.” VentureBeat can confirm that common searches in the U.S. and U.K. have blocked steamy images from showing up in image results and that SafeSearch is on permanently.

A Google spokesperson told us and other outlets the following statement about the changes:

We are not censoring any adult content, and want to show users exactly what they are looking for — but we aim not to show sexually explicit results unless a user is specifically searching for them. We use algorithms to select the most relevant results for a given query. If you’re looking for adult content, you can find it without having to change the default setting — you just may need to be more explicit in your query if your search terms are potentially ambiguous. The image search settings now work the same way as in web search.

Essentially, Google’s decision makes it much harder to find porn using Google. This is a big win for competing search engines, especially Microsoft’s Bing and ICM Registry’s Search.xxx. If Google doesn’t want the traffic, the underdogs certainly will take it.

Microsoft’s Bing, the No. 2 search engine on the web, still offers a robust image search, and we can confirm that it works perfectly well for looking at all kinds of explicit images. (Which is sort of funny considering how Microsoft has serious problems with nudity and pornography being hosted on its servers.)

Search.xxx is another winner. While it does not offer a full-fledged image search, Search.xxx does offer a safe browsing experience when you are looking for adult material. Plus, you know exactly what you’ll find when looking for video or images on it. As we’ve written before, Search.xxx only crawls online pages with the .xxx domain and it claims to be “safer” than using other search engines to find porn because all sites found through it are scanned daily by McAfee.

“We are still digesting exactly what this will mean in real-world search queries for the porn-searching consumer, but this seems to continue a trend we have seen in recent months by the major search engines towards adult content,” ICM Registry CEO Stuart Lawley told us via email. “Google’s decision only serves to reinforce the purpose and usefulness of what ICM Registry has been building: a destination for those adult consumers looking for high quality content.”

This landed in our tips line this morning, and really, how could we not write it up?

Come4.org is a not-for-profit porn site that takes all the glorious ickyness of online porn and channels it toward the greater good.

Here’s how it’ll work: Each video clip on the site will be associated with a specific cause. The Come4 spank bank will feature amateur videos as well as professionally produced erotica, and users can upload their own clips, as well. The site will serve ads and sponsored videos from adult brands, including sex toy stores; that revenue will be used to fund the causes.

If you think about it, the Come4 premise makes a lot of sense. In terms of web traffic, online porn sites are third only to Google and Facebook; Come4′s founders say porn is a $100 billion market. Yet while we spank and buzz our way to self-satisfaction, people around the world go without life’s necessities: food, clean water, shelter, medicine, education, etc.

So why not crowdsource a little free pornography and use the money we spend on it to help those in need?

Here’s a video from the founders explaining what it is and why they think it’ll work:

“The tech is well-known. It is the idea that is disruptive,” wrote co-founder Riccardo Zilli (pictured above) in an email to VentureBeat.

The founders also acknowledge the flawed nature of porn itself, saying on the site that most online porn “fosters a one-dimensional perspective that is often fake, violent, macho-centered, and in many cases barely legal.”

The first cause Come4 will tackle is the Asta Philpot Foundation, an organization that raises awareness about the rights and issues (including sexual issues) faced by disabled people.

Future causes will be selected based on a few criteria, such as whether they provide cost-effective solutions to real problems and whether the Come4 community supports the cause. The organization will also give special consideration to organizations that support and defend individuals’ sexual rights and raise awareness around violations of those rights.

To date, the Milan-based company has raised just a bit more than $4,000 through crowdfunding on Ulule.

ICM Registry is the company behind the .xxx domain, and it’s launched a new search engine called Search.xxx that intends to make looking for online adult entertainment safer and easier to access.

Search.xxx works similar to Google, Bing, or DuckDuckGo, but it only crawls online pages with the .xxx domain. ICM says that it manages more than 240,000 unique .xxx domain, and its search engine scans more than 21 million pages to finds its results. Plus, at the top of the search page you can select between 19 languages and sexual orientation of the content you’re looking for.

“ICM Registry has worked for more than a decade to build .XXX into a globally accepted place for responsible adult online entertainment,” ICM Registry CEO Stuart Lawley said in a statement. “With a search engine dedicated to helping people find precisely what they want amid millions of pages of content, we’re providing an entirely new adult content experience in a safe, privacy protected, and trusted environment.”

Search.xxx claims it is “safer” than using any other search engine to find porn because all sites found through it are scanned daily by McAfee. These sites also carry a MetaCert Family Safety label that make it easier for parents to restrict access to these sites in their browser settings. Basically, the .xxx sites found on Search.xxx remove the worry of getting malware from looking for adult content and makes it easier to block sites.

“This is a safer, responsible environment where users aren’t subjected to potentially annoying images and offers that plague some porn portals,” Lawley said. “The site is also free of pop ups, pop unders and other unwelcome distractions.”

Palm Beach, Fla.-based ICM Registry opened up bidding for sites wanting a .xxx domain about a year ago and officially launched the domain last December. ICM charges a quite-pricey $60 a year for .xxx domains.

Sept. 9 - 10, 2013 San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Cloud storage services such as Dropbox, Google Drive, and SugarSync are quickly changing how consumers deal with content on a day-to-day basis. Being able to access your photos, movies, music, and important documents at any time on any device can help with productivity — or just organizing your life.

It seems like an easy sell: Pay a reasonable monthly fee, and cloud storage will simplify your life.

But while these services promise storage nirvana, each company has its own set of policies and restrictions that determine what you can or cannot store there.

None is more restrictive than Microsoft’s SkyDrive. Check out the first two parts of the Windows Live code of conduct that governs SkyDrive:

You will not upload, post, transmit, transfer, distribute, or facilitate distribution of any content (including text, images, sound, video, data, information or software) or otherwise use the service in a way that:

• depicts nudity of any sort, including full or partial human nudity, or nudity in nonhuman forms such as cartoons, fantasy art or manga.

• incites, advocates, or expresses pornography, obscenity, vulgarity, profanity, hatred, bigotry, racism, or gratuitous violence.

The code of conduct is much larger than this, but already this list has some serious issues. From the looks of it, you can’t store nude or partially nude drawings (sorry, Titanic fans and fine art lovers) or your favorite legally purchased adult porn movie. Because Bugs Bunny wears no clothes, I guess he’s off limits, too.

Note that this applies to anything you upload to your SkyDrive, including private files.

Here’s another issue: SkyDrive is connected to your Microsoft account. If Microsoft suspends your SkyDrive, you also lose access to any connected Outlook or Office software or Windows Phone and Xbox 360 devices. This incredibly strict code of conduct could end up cutting off other services you depend on.

And another problem: Microsoft is pushing you to use SkyDrive in Windows 8 and Office 2013. SkyDrive is deeply embedded into the Windows 8 OS. In the new version of Office, the default for saving files is now SkyDrive instead of your local hard drive. Microsoft is making it incredibly easy to save to the cloud. What happens, though, if I write a story with one too many swear words in Word and save it to SkyDrive?

Windows Phone 7, too, has an option to automatically upload any picture you take to a private folder on your SkyDrive. If you take a bedroom photo of your significant other and your phone uploads it automatically, you are technically violating Microsoft’s policy.

We asked Microsoft about its code of conduct and why the heck its policies are so strict. We asked why so many things weren’t permitted. We wanted to know if we uploaded a gritty short story we wrote that included lots of curse words, would Microsoft suspend that account?

Microsoft wouldn’t play ball. A Microsoft spokesperson refused to answer any specific questions about its policies, instead providing me with this lengthy statement that hardly addresses our concerns:

With 60 million SkyDrive customers in more than 100 countries, Microsoft works hard to keep SkyDrive available around the world as the trusted place for people to store personal data. In order to do this, we’ve built SkyDrive to respect the privacy of our users while also ensuring it is not used for illegal activity – such as the distribution of child pornography. As a general practice, we do not comment on internal processes; however, we have strict internal policies in place to limit access to a user’s data, and we have advanced mechanisms to ensure users abide by our Code of Conduct. For example, we pioneered automated scanning for child pornography through the PhotoDNA project — now used by other industry leaders. Any content we find to be in violation of our Code of Conduct is subject to removal — and in rare cases, can lead to temporary or permanent shutdown of an account. We understand no system is perfect. That’s why we are constantly improving our ability to ensure the privacy, security and availability of our users’ data around the world.

OK, so Microsoft’s scanning SkyDrive for child porn to make sure it doesn’t get shared around the web. We sincerely appreciate that. But why not amend the code of conduct to make it more specific about what’s allowed and not? How does it define “obscenity” and “vulgarity?”

While we’re troubled by Microsoft’s policy, we decided to look at four other top cloud storage providers to see where they stood on the issue of content restrictions. We asked each if its cloud service would allow a user to store legally purchased adult porn without sharing it to others. We figure if you can store adult porn on a service, semi-nude drawings and Bugs Bunny are fine, too.

Check out our findings below.

Box

While Box targets businesses, consumers can easily use the service as well. Part of Box’s strategy is to entice people to use its services through promotions like 50GB storage giveaways to Android and iPhone users and then hope those consumers encourage businesses and teams to use it. So we’re sure there are a fair number of consumer signups, too.

A Box spokesperson said he wasn’t comfortable answering our questions about storing porn in Box, but he did point us to this part of the company’s terms of service:

You may not use Box in any way that violates applicable federal, state, or international law, or for any unlawful purpose.

He said as long as someone does not violate the law in any way, including the DMCA, a customer will generally have no problems from Box.

Dropbox

Dropbox also refused to answer our questions directly, but the company did direct us to its terms of service, DMCA policy, and acceptable use policy. The policy does not mention any content restrictions (such as porn or nude drawings) besides telling you not to break the law in any way.

Google Drive

Google Drive‘s policies aren’t as ridiculous as Microsoft’s, but the company does have a lot of restrictions on content. Google has rules against “publishing” (read: sharing) content that includes sexually explicit material, bullying, violence, and more.

Google would neither confirm nor deny if a user of its Drive service could upload legally obtained porn to the cloud, even if it was just for personal use. A Google spokesperson told us the following:

We work hard to curb abuses that threaten our ability to provide services like Google Drive, and we ask that everyone abide by the policies to help us achieve this goal. That said, a user’s private content is private. This means that unless a user publishes content that could be reported by another user for violation of our Abuse Program Policies, we would have no reason to investigate or take action against a particular account.

Basically, without admitting it in full, Google is saying you’re usually fine to store adult content in Drive as long as you don’t share your favorite Jenna Jameson joint with your friends.

Another note on Google: Like Microsoft, it’s easy to be connected to several Google services through a single account. If you were to upload and store something Google didn’t like, you’d have to worry about losing access to Gmail and other services.

SugarSync

SugarSync was by far the most forthcoming in answering our questions. Like many other services, it also doesn’t have any specific content restrictions, as long as you’re being lawful.

Robb Henshaw, the director of corporate communications at SugarSync, told us:

There are no restrictions on what can be uploaded and stored on SugarSync account for your own personal use. However, if you use SugarSync to share/distribute obscene content in a way that violates our Terms of Use, we do reserve the right to disable your account.

Wrap up

From our research, Microsoft appears to be the most restrictive cloud storage provider on the market. Its policy concerning what can or cannot be stored in SkyDrive is outrageous in its rigidness. We appreciate the company is trying to deter criminals, but it also doesn’t allow “profanity.” Are you kidding me?

The other four companies we spoke to appear to allow you to store whatever content you want as long as you legally obtained it, it doesn’t violate the DMCA or other laws, and as long as you’re not publicly sharing obscene content.

Boiling it down further, Dropbox and SugarSync seem to be the two best consumer options for storing content without worrying about Big Brother snooping on your account or disabling it for questionable content. Box is more ideal for business use, and Google’s policies still have more restrictions than we’d like.

h/t The Compass Project

Nearly naked romantic couple photo via Shutterstock.

Animal rights organization PETA launched its .XXX domain website Tuesday. The site combines traditional porn and shocking images of animal cruelty, ready to turn you on and then make you feel guilty (so, really no different than any other porn site).

The company announced it was purchasing the domain peta.xxx in September 2011, soon after the triple-x domain option was offered to the public during a “sunrise period.” During that period of time, PETA had to apply for the domain name, alongside any other company that wanted to snatch up the rights to its name before it went up for grabs.

“A lot of organizations were gun shy about the triple-x domain, but when PETA saw it we thought this would be triple-extra effective,” Lindsay Rajt, director of campaigns for PETA told VentureBeat at the time.

PETA is known for using shock value to raise awareness of the abused critters of the world, and this website falls right in line with that approach. The .xxx domain and the promise of naked people in compromising positions attracts viewers to the site. After watching the salacious video or eyeballing sexy photos, visitors are confronted with disturbing images of animal cruelty.

A number of celebrities have been involved in PETA campaigns — particularly its “I’d rather go naked than wear fur,” advertisements — and this porn site is no exception. Famed adult movie stars Ron Jeremy and Jenna Jameson, along with a number of other celebrities, are gracing peta.xxx’s pages.

Ron Jeremy eloquently explained in a Q&A with PETA: “This is the perfect example of sex just being used to draw interest, and then once you’re there on the site, we’re going to hit you with facts that you need to know about the world of animals.”

Thumbnail cat image via Flickr/Gideon van der Stelt

U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron and several other government officials will soon begin discussions with Internet Service Providers to create service plans that entirely block pornography, according to The Telegraph.

The government’s decision to look into widespread porn blocking comes from wanting to “protect” children whose parents are either too lazy or not savvy enough to block it themselves. The Telegraph report claims that three-quarters of children in the U.K. have access to the Internet without parental supervision and that about 800,000 can view adult content if they please.

If the most conservative factions of the U.K. government have their way, ISPs would offer a default plan that blocks all porn and if you do want adult content, you would have to opt-in. The Prime Minister reportedly does not want to impose that strict of a system but instead would prefer an “active choice” where you choose whether you get adult content or not when you sign up for a plan.

Conservative Member of Parliament Claire Perry said she is pushing for the “opt-in” system. “If British Internet Service Providers introduced ‘opt-in’, we would be the first country in the world to have such a system,” Perry told The Telegraph. “We led the world on blocking child abuse imagery. We’ve done it before. We can do it again. And what a wonderful legacy to give to our children. The time for hand-wringing is past and the time for common sense solutions is here. We have got to act.”

In the U.K., one-quarter of online searches are for pornography, so if porn was censored at a network level, those who make and distribute it could see traffic declines. We’re sure sites such as Sex.com and Snatchly, two new Pinterest clones that curate adult pictures across the web, will be watching closely.

Let us know in the comments if you think the U.K. government is pursuing this issue correctly or if it amounts to censorship.

Surprised man photo: olly/Shutterstock

Sex.com, the most expensive public domain ever purchased, has just re-launched as yet another Pinterest for porn, joining sites like Snatchly and Pornterest in curating the web’s randiest material. (NSFW links)

While lurid, Sex.com is interesting because in the early years of the Internet, it was the most valuable piece of virtual real estate. The current owners continued that tradition and paid a staggering $13 million to buy the domain name. There’s even a book written about the URL’s ownership changing hands between all kinds of crazy characters.

The revamped site will join the many Pinterest clones that are popping up around the web. Pinterest’s user interface that lets users “pin” photos and videos they like to virtual pin-boards has proven incredibly successful thus far, and it is now the third most popular social network in the U.S.

Sex.com’s smooth operators are optimistic the made-over site will succeed. In its press release announcing the launch, Sex.com claims more than 97 percent of Pinterest accounts are created by women and that the pictures shared are “of very little interest to men.”

“Pinterest doesn’t allow adult photos, so we felt there was an opportunity in the marketplace for such a service, and with the large amount of adult-oriented traffic, we expect to compete with sites like Tumblr and Pinterest over the next 12 months,” said “Fred” of Sex.com, in a statement.

If anything, the new Sex.com is certainly a far cry from the 90s incarnation:

Seductive woman photo: Anton Zabielskyi/Shutterstock

Social media darling Pinterest is dominated by female users. Men, for the most part, haven’t yet been attracted to the concept of “pinning” pictures they like and sharing them. But Snatchly, a recently launched Pinterest imitator, might have found a way to get guys to keep coming back: porn.

“Our intentions for Snatchly were pretty simple: a Pinterest that men would use,” Snatchly co-founder Neil Notts told VentureBeat via e-mail. (Notts isn’t his real name.)

While a few other Pinterest-like sites including Manteresting and Gentlemint are catering to men, both sites are devoid of sexual content. Regardless of whether or not we want to admit it, the internet is chock-full of pornography. Online porn is so popular, Egypt felt the need to ban it this week. (Good luck with that, Egypt.) So what’s a fellow to do who wants to use a Pinterest-y site where explicit content is allowed? Get a load of Snatchly.

“We didn’t think masculine colors and manly categories like ‘cars,’ ‘gadgets,’ and ‘cigars’ would be enough, so we went with pastel colors and porn,” Notts said.

Snatchly was launched on February 13 by two men who work for Los Angeles-based startups. The two have requested anonymity because they work full-time jobs at other companies and would rather not be associated with this project unless it becomes a smash. A screen grab of the site tells you why they might want to remain under-the-rader for now:

Notts and his partner’s idea seems to be catching on with online users. The site has so far registered more than 15,000 users and attracted more than 100,000 unique visitors. However, even with the users and eyeballs coming to the site, it will need to find a way to make money. Notts says he and his partner have some ideas, but want to make sure that the site remains “clean and unintrusive.”

“There are existing adult affiliate instruments that we could plug into similar to Pinterest via Skimlinks,” Notts said. “We’re also exploring the idea of sponsored snatches, boards, or even sections.”

Another “Pinterest for porn” site called Pornterest exists, but it’s relatively flaccid when it comes to features. Snatchly steps up that general idea and makes it even more perversely brilliant. It works almost exactly like Pinterest, but the most popular content on the site alternates between hard-core and soft-core porn, with pictures and GIFs oozing all over the page. There’s even a new “lightbox” feature borrowed from Facebook and Google+ that lets you cycle through larger photos quickly.

Next up for Snatchly will be adding video “snatches” (its version of “pins”) from a variety of sites. Notts said that next week Snatchly users will be able to see embeddeded Flash and HTML5 videos from sites like “PornHub, YouTube, XVideos, YouPorn, RedTube, Tube8, Beeg, XHamster, Spankwire, BigStar, and many more.”

Sexy woman photo: cardiae/Shutterstock

The decision is based on a similar 2009 ruling against online smut that has not yet been enforced. Egyptian publication Egypt Today confirmed the news in a tweet, stating courts would be banning the websites as of now. Of course, the 140-character social network promptly lit up like a switchboard with angry people wanting their porn (or freedom from censorship, one of the two).

One Twitter user says, “Rejoice Egypt, a new black market for porn CDs is in the making.”

Another user jokingly (we think) offers to sell proxies to Egyptian porn-watchers, allowing them to access the scandalous material online anonymously. His going rate is $8 a proxy. You can follow the conversation on Twitter using the #EgyPornBan hash tag.

The Egyptian government has been accused of censoring the Internet before, most recently during the overthrow of former leader Hosni Mubarak. During that time, social media was cut off, making it difficult for protesters and demonstrators to coordinate over the Internet.

If we are sure of anything in this world, it’s Rule 34: If it exists, there’s porn of it. If the lawmakers are serious, they can’t stop at the Internet. They will have to censor books, paintings, music, college dorm posters, email, sex text messages (sexting), and just about every teenaged-boy’s brain. The Egyptian government will now have to figure out a way to determine what is actually porn and what is artistic expression or a private moment.

hat tip The Next Web; Fig leaf image via Shutterstock

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Running a massive online community is a tricky business. The administrators who police the site are trying to strike a balance between encouraging users to contribute and keeping unsavory and illegal behavior to a minimum.

Reddit, a news aggregator and online community which has seen massive growth over the last year, allows users to create subreddits, which are essentially themed forums centred around topics like technology, humor and thousands of more obscure pastimes. Over the weekend Reddit announced it will no longer allow suggestive subreddits focused on sexual content featuring minors.

It’s more of symbolic gesture than a real solution to the problem. From Tumblr to Facebook, the problem of child pornography is one that requires continuous policing.

On Facebook, for example, large communities existed around the obscure acronym “PTHC”. That’s hardly a suggestive title, like the subreddit “pre_teen girls” which sparked Reddit’s recent ban. But it is on the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children watchlist of terms related to child pornography, and it turned up hundreds of pages on Facebook, dumbfounding Facebook executives.

About six months ago a similar controversy erupted on Reddit over a subreddit called “jailbait”. The national media caught wind of the story and Reddit quickly shut the forum down. But it didn’t make any explicit changes to its guidelines. In large part that is because Reddit views itself as a bastion of free speech on the web. The community prefers to police itself and has a knee jerk reaction to anything it perceives as an attempt at censorship. That’s been a integral part of the site, and an important catalyst in Reddit’s pushback against the SOPA and PIPA piracy bills, a major victory for self-organizing internet activists.

In their blog post on the new ban, Reddit’s administrators tried to address this cultural conflict.

We understand that this might make some of you worried about the slippery slope from banning one specific type of content to banning other types of content. We’re concerned about that too, and do not make this policy change lightly or without careful deliberation. We will tirelessly defend the right to freely share information on reddit in any way we can, even if it is offensive or discusses something that may be illegal. However, child pornography is a toxic and unique case for Internet communities, and we’re protecting reddit’s ability to operate by removing this threat. We remain committed to protecting reddit as an open platform.

“A lot of organizations were gun shy about the triple-x domain, but when PETA saw it we thought this would be triple-extra effective,” Lindsay Rajt, director of campaigns for PETA told VentureBeat.

Reuters reported the story, saying the anti-animal cruelty organization is staking its claim to peta.xxx, which will serve as an animal cruelty awareness and pornography site. Peta has pushed the limits of its animal cruelty ads often in the past with near-nudity, racy slogans and a lot of shock value. Indeed, shock value seems to be PETA’s way of waving its arms for attention. This porn site is no exception.

“As soon as people land on the site they will see some explicit content, those tantalizing images they they’ll be hoping for,” Rajt said of the site’s content. As they go deeper into the site, however, visitors will find graphic images of animal abuse. It seems the .xxx site will serve up both violence and sex.

“It can be a pretty depressing subject,” Rajt said about animal cruelty, “We hope it’ll grab people’s attention, get them talking, and ultimately get them to ask questions.”

Rajt believes that PETA generates awareness for all kinds of people, and thinks this is just one avenue to reach a subset of its potential audience.

The .xxx domains are open to the public in a “sunrise period,” where companies have 50 days to bid for its domains.

PETA has met a lot of opposition before, with anti-PETA groups forming around its cause. These groups include PETA Kills Animals and Vegans Against PETA, which is specifically “concerned about the misogynist…tactics used by PETA.” Even the Superbowl rejected a PETA advertisement claiming “vegetarians have better sex.”

Perhaps now we’ll find out.

See below for a PETA produced video of famed porn star Ron Jeremy talking animal cruelty.

[Photo provided by peta.com]