Pr0n baron challenges Google and Yahoo! to build better child locks

'This is not about First Amendment rights, it is about protecting children'

The world's largest porn studio says that Google and Yahoo! should "erect stronger barriers" to keep porn away from the world's children.

Steven Hirsch, the co-chairman and co-founder of Vivid Entertainment, is to deliver this message on Saturday in New Haven, Connecticut as he addresses an army of Yale University MBA candidates.

"Responsible companies in the adult industry such as ours have done a great deal to deter minors from accessing adult material," Hirsch proclaims from inside a Vivid press release. "None of the search engines and portals, but particularly Yahoo and Google, has taken any significant steps in this direction.

"Vivid will work with any company that is ready to make it much more difficult for children to be exposed, even inadvertently, to material intended only for adults. This is not about First Amendment rights, it is about protecting children."

They are endangered, the porn king says, because the likes Google and Yahoo! do a poor job of promoting their porn filters and age-verification tools.

And while we are on the subject...

Hirsch also says that he does his best to convince his porn stars they shouldn't be porn stars. "I do interview all of the Vivid Girls personally before we sign them to exclusive contracts," he continues. "But, guess what? I spend more time trying to talk a new girl OUT of becoming a porn star as I do discussing the deal points of her contract once she's convinced me that she really does want to go down that path."

And he wants everyone to understand that he's a serious businessman. "In the end, running the world's biggest adult film studio isn't that much different than running any other studio except that our product is pretty much exclusively about sex," he rambles on. "The truth is, Vivid Entertainment is a business like any other. And my job is concerned as much with cost of goods, margins and EBITDA as it is with trying to come up with the idea for the next 'Debbie Does Dallas...Again.'"

Oh, and he knows his tech too. "We always believed it was important to stay on top of all new technologies," he insists, before listing all sorts of things that only occasionally involve new technologies.

"But we were also the first adult studio to sign talent to exclusive contracts; the first to change adult video packaging to make it more appealing to consumers and retailers; the first to really capitalize on the Internet for branding; the first to own a cable TV network; the first to shoot movies in Hi Def and to go after the wireless market in an effective way; the first to diversify with special interest labels such as Vivid-Alt, Vivid-Ed, Vivid-Celeb and even Vivid-Plus for those who like to watch women of notable stature; and the first to license our name with a professionally managed program that has included book publishing, comics, condoms, vodka, shoes, apparel and other merchandise. In publishing, 'How to Have a XXX Sex Life' by the Vivid Girls, published by HarperCollins, became a best seller and recently went into paperback." ®