Ask Jeeves placed ads on porn related sites
The Wall Street Journal reported that Advertising.com had used Ask Jeeves online ad campaigns for high profile clients, only to find some of the ads ending up on adult content websites. Companies such as AT&T, Dell and Home Depot discovered their ads appearing on ABCSearch.com, a search engine that included a lot of adult content.

"Advertising.com officials said they had entrusted an Internet-search company, Ask Jeeves Inc., Emeryville, Calif., with placing ads for some clients, including Home Depot, on a variety of sites. "We were relying on Ask Jeeves to protect us," said Gar Richlin, chief operating officer at Advertising.com. "We're not doing any [further] business with Ask Jeeves at this point in time as a result of this."

Ask Jeeves's main business is operating the Ask.com search site, but the company's ad-sales force sells space for other companies' sites as well. A spokeswoman for Ask Jeeves , Alexa Rudin, said the sites used by her company were specified in a contract with Advertising.com. She added that Ask Jeeves has been pruning the list of sites where it places ads to remove the less appealing ones. On Thursday, she said, Ask Jeeves stopped placing ads on ABCSearch."

The ads in question were sold on the basis that they could appear anywhere on a network of sites affiliated with Ask Jeeves.
Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |