PIONEER FOR INTERNET VOYEURS ENDS WEBCAM

From: United Press International  | Date: January 1, 2004  

01-01-2004

Pioneer for Internet voyeurs ends webcam

SACRAMENTO, Jan 01, 2004 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- After seven years of non-stop broadcast, the webcams that relayed every intimate detail of Jennifer Ringley's life were switched off Thursday.

For her fans, there will be no more viewings of Ringley slumped in front of the TV, doting on her countless pets, idly plaiting her hair, pottering around her house or sauntering naked between rooms, the BBC said.

For a brief spell in the late 90s, Jennicam was the most talked-about site on the embryonic Internet.

Started in 1996 by a 20-year-old Ringley, then a student in Pennsylvania, Jennicam was billed as an "experiment." Ringley rigged up a camera to the computer in her college dorm and broadcast, live and unedited, her life over the Web.

Ringley, a self-described former computer geek who works at a non-profit social service agency in the Sacramento, Calif., area, said in her mission statement she wanted to create a "window into a virtual human zoo."

But the online payment service Paypal severed its ties to the site because of the nudity broadcast on Jennicam.