PALO ALTO, Calif. (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden has displaced Pamela Lee Anderson in cyberspace and people looking for information about the American flag outnumbered those curious about Britney Spears.
For the first time in the short history of the Internet, popular search engines report that "sex" dropped off their lists of top 10 search terms in the days following the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
"Popular search terms last week turned almost exclusively to disaster-related information," said David Emanuel, spokesman for the popular search engine AltaVista, which tracks top search terms. Almost all perennial favorites like Pamela Anderson Lee, Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys were knocked off the list.
Sex, a longtime favorite usually in the top 10, dropped to number 17, Emanuel said.