Justin.tv Is Turning Porn Queries Into Cash

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/16/justintv-is-redirecting-porn-queries-into-cash/

by vaksel • 17 years ago

35 47 17 years ago

fallentimes4• 17 years ago

While it's cool to see them trying out some unconventional ways of monetization, I have a feeling this won't last for very long.

mikeyur2• 17 years ago

There will probably be some complaints from parents or some being redirected to porn sites, but what do you expect? If parents are so offended they should talk to their child about searching for porn on the internet rather than complaining.

If some kid turns 'safe search' off in google and types in 'porn' - will the parents get mad at google?

alaskamiller2• 17 years ago

Yeah, I wasn't aware if I typed in xxx at Google they now wait 5 seconds and send me to a porn site automatically.

jonursenbach• 17 years ago

When was the last time a parent actually talked to their child instead of complaining about it being someonelse's problem?

fallentimes4• 17 years ago

Were those rhetorical questions?

Not sure where you derived them, but my only point was: usually when enough outraged people are outraged someone/some company gives in. Unfortunate, but true. Personally, I think it's a great idea.

emmett3• 17 years ago

FYI - this isn't a method of monetization. This is a way of policing our community, by preventing people from searching for and finding porn on our site.

Secondly, actual users of our site have not complained, except for a few of our mods who say it makes it harder for them to find bad channels and flag them. So it's likely to last quite a while, since it's very successful in its goal.

fallentimes4• 17 years ago

Gotcha. If Techcrunch had included your guys' comment from the start it would have cleared everything up.

jackowayed2• 17 years ago

This is awesome.

People who want porn get porn. People who want money (ie Justin.tv) get money.

Unfortunately, there are definitely issues.

Some 8-year-old kid is going to search for the awesome new channel about secant that everyone in 3rd grade is talking about. Since the c is next to the x, he's going to accidentally type "sex" instead of "sec". 5 seconds later, he says "mommy, what is that?", and 10 seconds later Justin.tv has a very, very angry parent on their hands.

Ok, maybe that's a little unrealistic. But people are going to complain about it.

Frocer• 17 years ago

Good thing I didn't learn secant until high school -- in which my typo would turn into a pleasant surprise

evdawg2• 17 years ago

It's not up to Justin.tv to ask for an age: it's up to the site that actually displays said pornographic content. It's their business and their responsibility.

Btw, after trying out the redirect, there is in fact no "pornographic" material on the entry page.

EDIT: this comment was not meant to be a reply to your comment, jackowayed. (oops! sorry.)

thwarted• 17 years ago

And they could hit the t key a little too soon also and end up with a demo video on using a sextant. The educational possibilities of typos are endless! Although, I wouldn't be surprised if sextant demo videos get caught in some web filter.

emmett3• 17 years ago

You'd think they would, but we've been running this for a long time already and other than this silly kerfluffle, there haven't really been complaints. And believe me, our users love to complain (that's why we love our users!)

rms• 17 years ago

From another post here, I am absolutely amazed that a search for xxx or sex on Google takes you to flash video based full length hardcore porn. I didn't realize it was that easy these days. What Justin.tv is doing is no different or worse than Google. I would expect Justin.tv is banned by every parental filter anyways.

jackowayed2• 17 years ago

They don't need to be banned.

It's a redirect. So as long as the actual porn site is blocked, Justin.tv doesn't need to be. Normal Justin.tv is fine, and if someone does get redirected to porn, the filter should grab it there when it tries to load hot-porn.com or whatever.

Dilpil• 17 years ago

Something tells me that the people who run porn censoring groups won't follow your logic.

jonknee• 17 years ago

Google isn't getting paid for it. This would be like treating a porn search as an automatic AdWords click.

(I have no problem with it either, I just don't see a comparison to it with Google. Google doesn't ban porn, doesn't redirect, etc.)

holdenpage• 17 years ago

I really don't see any issue with this quite honestly.

If a parent has an issue then either talk to your kid about NOT searching for porn or simply block the site.

kajecounterhack• 17 years ago

Seriously I read somewhere that someone complained about the word "Sexy" turning up a porn result.

Is that over the top? Maybe. But think about who looks up the word "Sexy" on a live video stream... I think they're on the right track in some way. Well, I don't necessarily think they're doing the right thing like this, but certainly if you have moral qualms with it, feel free to not use their service. I'm not sure this is a reason to stop using their service. Still, I think it might be better if maybe they had a button that said "Yes, redirect me" instead of only waiting five (only five?) seconds. Or, if Justin.tv is really using this to keep bad content off their site, why don't they block those terms completely? It's not like redirecting users to a porn site is the best alternative...not to mention all this bad press.

Mystalic2• 17 years ago

It just screams of desperation. It may make sense, but do you think they'll be able to keep their community this way?

justin2• 17 years ago

Yes, because we only redirect people who are searching for porn, and those people aren't actually part of the community.

Mystalic2• 17 years ago

Okay, here's how I see it, Justin:

You have forever tied the reputation and business of Justin.tv to porn. It doesn't matter if you host it or not, it doesn't matter if you warn users, you are forever associated with a market that millions of advertisers, investors, and users are adverse to. The TechCrunch porn article is already beginning to appear in search results - how long until any search for your website has articles about you and porn on it? And how long will casual users watch until they bounce?

It screams desperation because it isn't a business model, it's a stop-gap. The streaming video websites, including you, have yet to prove that you can make sustainable revenues that trump costs, which is the point of every business on the planet.

Once you realize that you've tarnished the reputation of Justin.tv forever and that it will create an artificial barrier to growth, it will be too late.

At least, that's how I see it.

jacquesm2• 17 years ago

Justin, the same Justin as the one that did lf ?

muon• 17 years ago

It's the natural thing to do but at what cost?

jrockway3• 17 years ago

The users that search for porn get porn. Justin.tv gets money. I fail to see how this is a poor business model.

Oh yeah, sex is evil. I get it.

mattmaroon3• 17 years ago

"the site should really include a page confirming that the user is over 18 before redirecting them"

Yes, because 16 year old boys who searched for porn are going to click no when asked if they're over 18.

allenbrunson• 17 years ago

The redirect he was suggesting wasn't to thwart 16-year-old boys from finding porn. It would be to make sure you don't accidentally stumble into something you don't want via a fat-fingered search query.

mattmaroon3• 17 years ago

I'm going to hope that pun (porn and xxx being fat-fingered) was unintentional.

anuraggoel2• 17 years ago

Wouldn't such a confirmation be needed purely for legal reasons?

mattmaroon3• 17 years ago

I'm not a lawyer, but my guess would be no since it's merely a link to a third party. I'd guess the third party has the responsibility to ask that question.

On the other hand, I'm not a lawyer.

jrockway3• 17 years ago

It's probably time for this Depression-era law to go away. I don't think there's a single person on earth that's waited until age 18 to look at porn. Why criminalize it?

nfg• 17 years ago

http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/i_am_under_18_bu...

larryfreeman2• 17 years ago

The fact that this story is so controversial (read the comments on TechCrunch) really shows that Justin.TV will probably stop doing this soon.

Interesting idea to give the adult searchers what they really want. The problem is that adult content is still too taboo for many folks.

evdawg2• 17 years ago

I would barely call some TechCrunch comments "controversy". That site has some serious youtube-style lowest-denominator-of-society commenting going on. The troll to constructive comment ratio is like 9:1.

larryfreeman2• 17 years ago

In my view and in my experience, many of the comments on this particular article do represent the general public out there.

The roughly same comments are found in this thread on Hacker News.

We are unfortunately still living in a time when many people are not open minded.

-Larry

emmett3• 17 years ago

Techcrunch didn't include the comment on the story we sent them, but here it is:

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.

debt2• 17 years ago

Does JTV really feel comfortable directing kids to porn? I am a fan of porn, but I'd feel uncomfortable having a hand in making porn so easily accessible to kids.

likpok• 17 years ago

If someone is searching for porn or xxx or whatever is flagged, then they certainly can get it elsewhere on the internet. Justin.tv is not directing them to it, they would have already found out how to find it.

debt2• 17 years ago

http://www.justin.tv/search?q=porn&commit=Search&sec...

Justin.tv directs me to a porn site.

It's wrong to just blindly forward people to porn when most of them are younger kids.

Justin.tv Is Turning Porn Queries Into Cash

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