Viagra falls
Thursday, 29 July 2010
RED-faced Council chiefs have strenuously rejected the notion that sex is for sale at Antrim Civic Centre after pulling a racy rogue ad from the Borough's official website.
The Council site, for years the epitome of quiet, bureaucratic sobriety, offered services of a very different nature earlier this week when a trader offering the solution to 'erectile dysfunction' used the home page to tout its wares.
The Canadian company claimed to be offering savings of '80-90%' for online drugs - but even the promise of bargain basement prices was not enough to tempt the Council to turn a blind eye to the pharmaceutical pick-me-up.
Within hours of the advertisement appearing the Antrim branch of the online pharmacy was officially shut down - and the colourful advert replaced by a warning to surfers.
“Our website may contain links to and from other websites," said a spokesperson.
“Please note that these websites may deal with privacy differently and we will have no liability or responsibility for the privacy practices or the content of any linked site. We do not necessarily support or endorse the services or business provided on any linked site.
“If you decide to access third party linked sites from our website, then you do so at your own risk."
Antrim Mayor Pam Lewis condemned the people behind the adults only ads - though she stressed that hackers were 'part and parcel' of modern life.
"This is obviously not the sort of thing we want to see on our site and I apologise to anyone offended by it," said the DUP rep.
“I am sure our IT Department will ensure that there is no repeat of this."
She revealed, however, that all computer systems are vulnerable to attack from cyber gangs and viruses - and even councillors are not immune.
“I've been offered viagra for sale before, even from two of my colleagues whose emails had been hacked!" she said. "It's something no-one wants, but it's an unfortunate sign of the times."
Though the unwanted guests were unable to sustain their presence on the Council site for long, it remained in place long enough for bloggers to poke fun at the blunder.
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