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‘Juicy’ College Gossip Site Faces Subpoena

Posted on: Wednesday, 19 March 2008, 09:55 CDT

JuicyCampus.com, the Web site with the slogan ‘Always anonymous, always Juicy,’ has been served a subpoena by New Jersey prosecutors citing its inability to regulate some user-submitted content which is hateful and offensive.

The site began last fall and quickly became home to multiple anonymous threads each day, some of which feature titles that border between hateful and promiscuous.

New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram claims that JuicyCampus may be in violation of the state’s Consumer Fraud Act because it claims to not allow offensive material, but fails to offer users a way to report material.

Last month, a student claimed she had been a victim of a malicious post that included her address on the Web site.

"There's an unbelievable amount of offensive material posted and absolutely no enforcement," said Milgram, noting insults about students' appearance, race and sexual history as "just the tip of the iceberg."

The attorney general also subpoenaed the Web site’s advertising agency, Adbrite, with the goal of gaining information about the advertising keywords it requested.

Milgram said Adbright has canceled its contract with JuicyCampus.

In an interview with the Associated Press last month, JuicyCampus founder Matt Ivester seemed to shrug at the swarm of controversy over the site.

"Like anything that is even remotely controversial, there are always people who demand censorship," he said . "However, we believe that JuicyCampus can have a really positive impact on college campuses, as a place for both entertainment and free expression."

The site’s user conduct section of its terms and conditions states that users agree to not use the Site to “upload, post, email or otherwise transmit any content that: is unlawful, threatening, abusive, tortious[sic], defamatory, obscene, libelous, or invasive of another's privacy; consists of instructional information on illegal activities; constitutes pornography, or sexual material of an obscene nature or that violates local, state or national laws.”

As opposed to many social networking sites, JuicyCampus claims that it does not track its users or attempt to identify them.

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On the Net:

JuicyCampus.com

Adbrite

Source: redOrbit Staff and Wire Reports

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