Hitting back at a lawsuit over alleged pornography ad banners, Microsoft says the merchandiser for the Oakland Raiders cheerleading squad refused to cooperate when workers at the software giant asked for details about the banners.
Microsoft answered the lawsuit Tuesday, saying LinkExchange staffers got no help from Boathouse Row Entertainment, according to ZDNet News. Boathouse Row sued Monday in San Francisco, charging that the porn banners began appearing on their Raiderettes web page within 30 days of joining the LinkExchange banner swapping network.
Microsoft corporate attorney Steve Aeschbacher says Boathouse Row first informed LinkExchange about the offending ads in April, and LinkExchange officials asked almost at once for details about them. Aueschbacher says the merchandiser's answer was that their attorneys "had said it was not in their best interests" to provide those details.
The Boathouse Row suit charges that some of the porn links led viewers to sites involving child pornography. The suit also says that when the Raiders organisation itself discovered the offending ads, the club amended the Boathouse Row merchandising deal.
LinkExchange maintains it does everything possible to block such materials from its network and to remove them once found there.
Dollar damage figures have yet to be suggested, but Boathouse Row attorney Mark Goodman said earlier this week that they could reach the multimillions.
