Swineshead Village Children's Drama Group
As many of the regular visitors to this site will know, the Swineshead Village Children's Drama Group Committee decided to temporarily remove the bulk of the website, pending an investigation of certain complaints and allegations against the www.fortunecity.com web space provider. It was alleged that a number of visitors had been exposed to inappropriate and sexually suggestive advertisements, of the kind that may corrupt children. Visitors will know how upset the Founding Director had been to learn of such images being linked to my innocent and wholesome website; he felt that it had potentially blackened and corrupted the ideals which the Swineshead Village Children's Drama Group leaders behold.
Our investigations have taken a great deal of time and effort, to ensure that nothing like this is repeated. Every possible effort has been made to cover each issue, and we hope that you will accept and agree with our findings. If you do not, please contact us at any of the e-mail addresses that can be found near the bottom of this page.
We have:
Removed the Romeo and Juliet homepage.
Added details about my wide and varied experience in the fields of music and drama to justify my role as Founding Director.
Changed elements from each page, to emphasise that the Group was set up by request from the children, and not as a result of any desire to compete or conflict with the local school productions, or the Family Drama Group.
Explored the Advertising Standards Authority website at www.asa.org.uk/index.htm to find details of how advertising may breach the Advertising Standards regulations.
E-mailed FortuneCity, passing on the concerns of the individuals that have been offended. They would be very interested to hear from anyone else that has a complaint regarding the advertising.
Re-read the FortuneCity ethos of keeping the "streets" clean from trash and other inappropriate garbage.
On four computers, we have intensively explored the FortuneCity and its Marina environment, concentrating upon all forms of advertising that could be experienced by visitors. The results of our investigations can be found in the table below:
| FortuneCity advertising | |||
| Advertiser | Advert details | Frequency | Percentage |
| StepStone | Computer and Business vacancies | 16 | 18.5% |
| ShopSmart | Trip to Las Vegas | 7 | 8.1% |
| Trip to New York City | 7 | 8.1% | |
| Build WAP site | 4 | 4.7% | |
| WAP drive | 5 | 5.8% | |
| Totally Free Internet | 2 | 2.3% | |
| 1,500 secure shops | 1 | 1.1% | |
| @skme.com | 4 | 4.7% | |
| Godado.com | 5 | 5.8% | |
| Virgin.com | 1 | 1.1% | |
| Global Business | 1 | 1.1% | |
| Netwhistle.com | 1 | 1.1% | |
| Big Kahuna | 1 | 1.1% | |
| University of Sarasota | 1 | 1.1% | |
| Win a BMW | 1 | 1.1% | |
| Win a digital camera | 1 | 1.1% | |
| MP3.com | 1 | 1.1% | |
| Thomas Cook holidays | 6 | 6.9% | |
| BoxMan | 1 | 1.1% | |
| Skin Your Browser | 21 | 24.% | |
TOTAL | 87 | 100% | |
ShopSmart advertises and offers links to a wide variety of other web sites:
However, ShopSmart does place great importance upon their Skin Your Own Browser advert.
Skin Your Own Browser
This does sound like an inappropriate website, and indeed the illustrative
picture could be considered to be sexually suggestive. However, when you
follow the hyperlink to the homepage of http://hotbar.com
it can be seen that the
"Skin Your Own Browser" site is not inappropriate at all. In
fact, this inspirational website offers a range of wallpapers which you can use
to personalise your browser bar, which is also known
as a toolbar. You can choose "skins" from a number of different
categories:
We have included some examples of these "skins" for you to see.
There is a section which involves making and sending your own "skins" to http://hotbar.com but in the terms and conditions of this service it is made clear that offensive and unacceptable "skins" will not be tolerated.
FortuneCity keeping the streets clean.
If you visit www.fortunecity.com, you will be informed that FortuneCity
employs a number of City Guides. It is their job to explore all websites
in their area, ensuring that there are no examples of:
Their ethos is quite clear: 'At FortuneCity.com, we are building the only true democratic community in cyberspace. We offer an environment where citizens develop relationships, build homes, and have a direct impact on the development of their community. This unique relationship allows us to focus on meeting the desires and needs of our citizens and advertisers.'
Advertising Standards Authority. 
We have also researched archived adjudications to see if there are any other examples of enforced advertising and its perceived effect on the host site. To date no such examples have been found. We will, of course, continue to search the archives. Please do let us know if you find any pertinent examples.
The ASA adjudicates complaints concerning advertising according to the following categories:
Summary
The Committee tentatively concludes from our investigations that FortuneCity is a
relatively safe
environment for my website to exist in. We accept that some people may have
been disgruntled or offended by adverts which they experienced.
However, after hours of searching through the FortuneCity, we have seen nothing
which could cause offence. PLEASE, if you do see something
advertised which you do not like, e-mail us at:
Founding Director: [email protected]
Public Relations: [email protected]
We will be pleased to hear from you, and will act on your worries as soon as possible. Then, also send your complaint about the advertising to FortuneCity, by following the links from www.fortunecity.com or
Sales Representative - [email protected]
Public Relations - [email protected]
500 Seventh Avenue, 15th Floor, NY, NY 10018.