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Yahoo Japan Posts Photo, Data of Suspect on Wanted List for Free

Posted on: Tuesday, 5 July 2005, 09:00 CDT

Jul. 4--TOKYO -- Yahoo Japan Corp. has posted on its website's advertisement space -- free of charge -- the photo and information on a murder suspect on a police wanted list, Yahoo Japan officials said Monday.

This is the first time that the Internet portal has used its ad space to help police collect information on a wanted person, the officials said.

The family of the murder victim is offering a 2 million yen reward for information leading to the arrest of the man suspected of the murder.

Yahoo Japan is carrying the photo, the name of the 44-year-old suspect, and information on the reward, in a banner ad on the upper right corner of its website's news segment.

Those who read news articles on the Yahoo site (http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl) will see the banner ad by the Tokushima prefectural police at around once every several dozen times, the company officials said.

The ad carries a link to the prefectural police's website for those seeking more information.

Yahoo Japan said it received a police request in late May to carry the search-related notice on the website, and decided it would be in the public interest to do so.

It used an unfilled ad space which has yet to find commercial advertisers, the officials said.

Yahoo Japan has 13 million members, which it claims to be the largest membership of any Japanese Net portal. Its website's news segment gets 2.2 billion page views a month. The company started carrying public ads last December.

One of the Yahoo Japan officials said, "We would consider cooperating...if we receive any similar request from others." Masao Horibe, a professor of information-related law at Chuo Law School, said he can "understand" Yahoo Japan's decision to cooperate with police in light of "the recent surge in the number of heinous crimes and the declining arrest rates.""But the issue concerns the privacy of crime suspects," he said. "We need to discuss how to maintain a balance between security and human rights."

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Copyright (c) 2005, Kyodo News International, Tokyo

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Source: Kyodo News International, Tokyo

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