Porn Spammers Hit YouTube

YouTube channel briefly turns XXX

(NEWSER) - Sesame Street briefly turned into Sex-ame Street yesterday, when hackers apparently took hold of the children’s show’s YouTube channel and filled it with porn. The page was taken offline in the afternoon, CNN reports, but it appears to be back up today . The nonprofit Sesame Workshop apologized yesterday, noting that, "We always strive to provide age-appropriate content for our viewers and hope to resolve this problem quickly." The XXX material was available for at least 20 minutes, The Daily What notes. Gawker and Reddit have NSFW screenshots. More»

Chinese government to face Google—and Goojje

(NEWSER) - In a country famous for fake name-brand products, Goojje and YouTubecn may be the highest-profile imitations yet. As China battles it out with the real Google, knockoffs of both Google and YouTube have emerged on China's Internet. There's been no official response yet to the sites, but experts don't expect them to escape censorship—or intellectual property issues—for long. More»

Google subsidiary takes the opportunity to gloat

(NEWSER) - In a move ripped right from the McDonald’s playbook, YouTube’s logo today comes with the tag “1 billion views per day!” That’s right, YouTube now gets “well over a billion views a day,” according to the site's official blog. Sure, execs are bragging, writes Stan Schroeder of Mashable, “but one has to admit they have a lot to brag about.” More»

(NEWSER) - The “Jill and Kevin” wedding video that's drawing millions of hits on YouTube includes uninvited guests: ads. Alongside the charming video of groomsmen and bridesmaids getting jiggy, YouTube yesterday ran an advertisement for a wedding product; today, "the ad space encouraged me to go to the California State Fair,” Chris Matyszczyk writes on CNET. Just how much is Google making from these ads? More»

(NEWSER) - China darkened Google for 2 hours today over the site’s continued practice of returning results linking to foreign websites and “pornographic” content, the Financial Times reports. The Chinese government is unhappy that Google’s domestic website, Google.cn, allows users to search the entirety of the Internet. The outage affected only Google.com, the only way to access Gmail in China and a prime target for advertisers. More»