A porn connection for football's Oakland Raiders and their cheerleaders? That's what a retailer of their official posters and other souvenir items accuses Microsoft of making, according to ZDNet News.
In a lawsuit filed here Monday, Boathouse Row Entertainment accuses Microsoft's banner swapping network of posting ads for pornographic Internet sites on its web pages. The company's attorney says pages devoted to the Raiders cheerleaders were hit with ads that allegedly included some leading viewers to child pornography sites.
Boathouse Row also says the Raiders amended their merchandising contract with the company when the banners were discovered.
The San Anselmo-based company hasn't put a dollar figure on potential damages just yet. But their San Francisco-based attorney, Mark Goodman says that if the porn banner links prove "very extensive," the claim could grow to a claim in the multimillions. The action seeks both punitive damages and restitution for the amended Raiders merchandising contract.
The banner swap network in question, LinkExchange, lets customers put free banner ads on member sites in return for accepting member ads on their sites. Microsoft acquired the network last November; the service is promoted as a cost-free way for small business to build World Wide Web traffic.
LinkExchange explicitly prohibits banners for pornographic or racist sites, or those promoting "illegal activity," ZDNet says. Goodman told ZDNet LinkExchange first said it wasn't possible for the porn ads to get into the network but then acknowledged the error while denying it could be held responsible.
