Net search for Jackson’s breast is biggest ever
Reuters News Service
NEW YORK - A flash of singer Janet Jackson’s right breast during a halftime Super Bowl performance has become the most-searched image in Internet history, online companies said today.
Jackson’s unscripted flash of flesh during Sunday’s Super Bowl halftime send Internet surfers seeking pictures of the snafu in greater numbers over a 24 hour period than searches for “September 11” or Madonna’s kiss with Britney Spears.
Jackson’s Web popularity rocketed to the top of the charts on Web portals owned by Terra Lycos and Yahoo Inc. moments after the shocking finale to the Super Bowl halftime show Sunday.
“The now infamous ‘wardrobe malfunction’ … has proved to be the most-searched event in the history of the Internet,” said Aaron Schatz, who compiles a daily list of top search phrases for Lycos.
Singer Justin Timberlake, at the end of a duet with Jackson, tore off part of her black leather bustier, exposing one bare breast. The incident prompted a federal probe into indecency on television.
On Monday, Jackson received 60 times as many searches than perennial chart topper, the “Paris Hilton sex tape,” and 80 times as many as singer Britney Spears.
By today Jackson broke records on Yahoo, accounting for nearly 20 percent of all terms searched on the site. The next closest on the list was the Super Bowl, garnering 2.7 percent.
