Let’s face it, after hearing about Spitzer’s adventures at The Emperor’s Club a couple of days ago, the first website most of you visited was not CNN.com, but MySpace - I know I did. After spending a couple (ok, give me more credit than that - 15) minutes looking at “Kristen’s” bikini picture, a thought crept into my mind. How does one go about finding a prostitute named something other than Cinnamon, Velvet, or (my personal favorite) Foxy Roxy (courtesy of Kuma Charmers - “the hottest exotic strip club in the Finger Lakes region”)?

According to http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gcl1re05K9b6bMBCQGikphgD6n6gD8VBFTDG1 (by Hillary Rhodes), Internet technology helps link up filthy rich politicians with $4300 callgirls. Online prostitution utilizes the Web as a social and an information network, similarly to Facebook and Google. The information network component of prostitution advertising comes in the form of online ads. A search for “bleep-bleep-bleep” on Google prominently displays links to “bleep.com”, “Hot-wet-bleep-bleep-and-tight-bleep.net”. In this way, escort businesses promote their products on the Web through online advertising, as discussed in class.

The second facet of the Web that these “technostitutes” utilize to recruit clients - according to Rhodes - is the social networking aspect. “It’s commercial, but it’s also social, so people do really form relationships” - says Audacia Ray, one of Rhodes’s interviewees. The author gives examples of websites (http://www.bigdoggie.com) where clients can rate the escorts. Higher-rated escorts usually receive more money for their services, as they create higher demand. This is analogous to how search engines work, where higher-ranked searches are more visible to the user and are thus visited more often. Of course, PageRank is different from Big Doggie’s algorithm in that the former is automated, and highly-ranked pages contribute more to the rank of the pages they link to, whereas Big Doggie leaves it to the user to rank the “product.”

In these ways, the escort business and the Web synergetically work together to make the world a better place. Web as an information network helps hard-working women advertise their services to a wide audience. Just like other businesses, escort services bid for advertising spots on Google and Yahoo searches. Moreover, for the “sex connoisseur” such as Mr. Spitzer, social networking websites such as Bid Doggie provide a rating service so that the client can more easily pick out his dream (or nightmare, if that’s what you are into) girl. In this way, today’s prostitutes utilize the structure of the Web as an information and social network - as discussed in class - to sell themselves in the same way a clothing company would sell itself as the best clothing store there is.