The Manchester Evening News is to stop carrying “Personal Services” ads. 

 News: MEN axes sex ads - Marketing Week

Will MEN Media’s ban on sex adverts lead to all papers refusing …

A brave move when so much revenue comes from them. Harriet Harman said that so much of the “sex industry” is linked to people trafficking and kidnap that the government is considering making the “oldest profession” illegal. Certainly that women and children are forced into it in brutal ways makes what at best is an unpalatable area into an intolerable one.

Will web sites be doing the same? So much of the “free” web is paid for by advertising and so much of the “paid” web is devoted to porn that it will be a significant factor in how the web continues to develop. Nothing I have ever worked on is likely to be involved in such activities even down to web sites funded by advertising for porn / sexual services and I would be most uncomfortable if it was. Can we as employees have much say in this kind of thing? I know journalists have expressed their unhappiness at their  news papers carrying these kind of ads.

Anyway, on a lighter note I wondered what Harriet Harman was going to say when she prefaced a comment with “my experience as solicitor general” :-O