They then placed the transparent overlay on their Web site. He said anyone viewing the Internet site wouldn't be able to see the transparency, but the computer would read the text identifying it as the sheriff's department's sex offender database. She said pornographers often use unrelated words in their metatags in hopes of being brought up on search engines. She said, however, AltaVista does not use them exclusively and that other factors might be responsible. Internet experts are saying problems like this show how difficult it is to monitor search engines and prevent pornography sites from soliciting unsuspecting customers.
Nothing is foolproof.
Protected by First Amendment Officials at the FBI said disguising a pornography Web site so it's picked up by a search engine is not illegal, as long as it contains adult pornography. The only way the porn manufacturers can be prosecuted is if the site involves child pornography. Gulotta heads the bureau's Innocent Images Task Force in Baltimore, which monitors child pornography and child solicitation on the Internet. It's a problem because people are always complaining that links to pornography sites just pop up on the screen. Unfortunately this is a way to lure people to their Web sites.