WHSmut, sorry, WHSmith has shut down its website for the second day running after it emerged that pornographic ebooks were available on the site.
To make things worse, typing “daddy” into the search box brought up ebooks featuring bondage alongside children’s story-books.
More than 60 hardcore sexual books were available on WHSmith’s site until yesterday, according to The Mail on Sunday.
WHSmith has apologised for “any offence caused” and explained that the ebooks appeared because the WHSmith automatically displays feeds from Kobo, the ebook site it is linked to, which features many self-published ebooks.
WHSmith said in a statement on its website: “Last week we were made aware that a number of unacceptable titles were appearing on our website through the Kobo website that has an automated feed to ours.
“This is an industry wide issue impacting retailers that sell self published eBooks due to the explosion of self publishing. […]
“We offer over one million titles through our eBooks partner Kobo, many of which are self-published titles. Due to the massive amount of self publishing a number of these titles have got through the screening process.
“We are taking immediate steps to have them all removed. While we are doing this we have decided to take our website off-line to best protect our customers and the public.”
WHSmith said its website will become live again “once all self published eBooks have been removed and we are totally sure that there are no offending titles available”.
It concluded: “We sincerely apologise for any offence caused.”
More of today’s news:
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Hiring surge as London sees strongest business activity rise in 17 years
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