Sex loses appeal after attacks

By CATHY ARONSON

For the first time in the history of the internet, sex has dropped off the top 10 search items as the world's attention shifted to the attack on the United States.

Information on the World Trade Center, Pentagon, Nostradamus, Osama bin Laden, Afghanistan, terrorist attacks and the FBI were the most popular requests last week, displacing the usual requests for sex, Britney Spears and Pamela Anderson.

AltaVista search engines showed that sex dropped to number 17 last week.

Yahoo spokesperson Anna Featherstone said the most popular request from New Zealand last week was Nostradamus, followed by Osama bin Laden, the World Trade Center and then Afghanistan.

Other popular search engines, including Google and Ask Jeeves, reported that Nostradamus had the biggest increase in popularity.

The 16th-century French astrologer's cryptic predictions were circulated in e-mails, suggesting he had foretold the attack which would be the beginning of World War III.

Other e-mails then circulated claiming the prediction e-mails were a hoax.

Ms Featherstone said that last week new websites emerged to cater for the disaster and new categories of websites were put on the search engine.

Nostradamus Prophecy Hoax websites had been the most popular.

The Yahoo news service also had 10 times more traffic than normal last Tuesday and 40 times more page views in the first two hours after the story broke.

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