CALL US CONVENTIONAL, but we really thought a Web site called Amsterdam.com would be a good place to look for maps, descriptions of museums and other tourist details for an upcoming vacation to the city known as the tolerance capital of the world.
No sooner did we click onto the site at www. Amsterdam.com than the site morphed into another called www.escorts.com, which seemed a little too willing to do business.
Its Web screen had photographs of four young women and copy inviting the visitor to “be among the first to register with Escorts.com, the Internet’s most professional, courteous, elegant and user-friendly companion location service. At last, finding and selecting desirable, friendly, willing and reliable partners for a week, a day, an evening or an hour will be no more than a mouse-click away.”
Professional? Sure. But are the transactions secure?
The copy beckons the viewer to become a charter member by promising pictures and descriptions of the “finest” escorts, models, strippers and massage therapists whom the site visitor may “contact immediately for discreet rendezvous.”
“You’ll receive an e-mail or – if you wish – a note sent discreetly to the mailing address of your choice when registration is about to begin,” the copy concludes solicitously.
Ending up with a URL doing trade in a legal gray area that even DMers one step ahead of the Federal Trade Commission wouldn’t want to touch isn’t particularly amusing. After all, whatever your pleasure, on the Internet the user is supposed to be in control.
We’re as tolerant as the next Web crawler, but if we thought we’d be hijacked to the world’s most famous red light district, we would have stuck with search words such as Rembrandt, Van Gogh and Concertgebouw.
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