Ketchup Bottle Links to Porn Site, Leaves Heinz Red in the Face

Daniel Howley
·Technology Editor
Updated
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Porn and ketchup, they go together like … wait, they don’t go together at all. Unless, that is, you happen to live in Germany.

When a man in Germany recently used his smartphone to scan a QR code on the back of a Heinz ketchup bottle, he was extremely surprised when his phone’s browser whisked him away to the land of adult entertainment, Germany’s The Local reports.

The man, who identified himself as Daniel Korell in a post on Heinz’s Facebook page, expressed his concern that children may use the QR code and accidentally find the porn site themselves.

What caused this confluence of events that managed to bring the world of hardcore pornography and condiments together?

Well, it turns out the bottle Korell was using had a QR code on it for a label-redesign contest Heinz ran from 2012 to 2014. Once the contest was over, Heinz let its ownership of the domain for the contest website expire.

After that, the webcam girl site FunDorado bought the domain. That means any time someone uses a smartphone to scan a Heinz ketchup bottle with that QR code, that person will automatically be brought to the FunDorado site. (Kids, please do not try this at home.)

At this point, we’re sure many of our German readers have torn apart their kitchen cupboards in a desperate attempt to see if their ketchup bottles will take them to FunDorado’s site. Just for research purposes, of course.

For its part, Heinz apologized to Korell and offered to let him design his own ketchup bottle label, which the company would then create and ship to him free of charge, though that hardly seems to cut the mustard. I refuse to apologize for that joke.

Heinz has also issued a statement apologizing for the QR code flap, telling CNNMoney in an email that the company is taking steps to ensure that a similar incident doesn’t happen again in the future.

FunDorado, on the other hand, offered Korell a free one-year subscription, so he can “catch up” on all of the adult content he wants without having to grab a new bottle.

via: The Local

Email Daniel at dhowley@yahoo-inc.com; follow him on Twitter at @DanielHowley or on Google+.