Meta tags are contained in the hidden HTML code of web sites. The tags describe a web site for the benefit of search engines. For example, OUT-LAW.COM contains meta tags such as intellectual property, copyright law and cybersquatting law. Search engines look at the meta tags to find which sites match a user’s query. Where a web site without permission includes in its meta tags the trade marks of third parties, there is infringement of the trade marks. This is sometimes called “stuffing”. Businesses have been successful in legal actions against web sites that engage in this practice with the aim of “stealing” traffic. However, until now, most reported cases of meta tag abuse have involved sites infringing the names of their direct competitors.
Envisional operates a search engine for companies that can detect on-line misrepresentations of their brands. Its search of the 26 most popular children's characters, including Pokemon, My Little Pony, Toy Story and Furby, revealed several thousand links to pornographic sites. 30% of these sites featured hard core material. The remainder contained nudity, obscene language or extreme violence.
“Using popular characters to lure children to porn sites is a ruthless attempt to boost traffic and advertising rates and irresponsibly ignores the harmful consequences to children of being exposed to pornography", said Ben Coppin, CEO of Envisional. It also infringes the trade marks of the brand owners.
Ben explained that different search engines place the porn sites in varying rankings in response to the toy search queries but that all major search engines are affected. "The first link from one search engine in response to a query for ‘My Little Pony’ was extremely pornographic," he said.
The brand owners can take legal action for trade mark infringement and other civil law remedies against the web sites in question. The sites also risk breaching criminal law.
However, the logistics and expense of tracing thousands of businesses worldwide and bringing actions against them are daunting. Ben Coppin told OUT-LAW.COM that his company is encouraging brand owners to alert the ISPs responsible for hosting the offending sites. “ISPs are often good at taking down illegal material. However, some of the ISPs are not easy to trace and, depending on their location, they may not feel any duty to remove the sites. Also, some of the sites themselves are not actually illegal.”
Ben said he would encourage parents to let their children use only search engines with reliable filters, such as the filter that is available with the search engine Google.com.