OSAMA bin Laden has displaced Pamela Lee Anderson in cyberspace and people looking for information about the American flag outnumbered those curious about Britney Spears. For the first time in the short history of the Internet, popular search engines report that ”sex” dropped off their lists of top 10 search terms in the days following the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. ”Popular search terms last week turned almost exclusively to disaster-related information,” said David Emanuel, representative for the search engine AltaVista, which tracks top search terms. Almost all perennial favourites like Pamela Anderson Lee, Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys were knocked off the list. Sex, a longtime favourite usually in the top 10, dropped to number 17, Emanuel said. Instead of entertainment and assorted fluff that has for years attracted the bulk of all Internet traffic, it was news, news and more news that people were looking for on AltaVista. CNN, News, World Trade Center, BBC and Pentagon were the top searches on the site last week. -Sapa
Wednesday September 19, 2001