Web giant Yahoo! is moving to distance itself from a Japanese affiliate found to be promoting the sale of whale meat.

Screen grabs taken from yahoo.co.jp's online store by the British-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) show it promoting tinned and fresh whale products, despite a ban by Yahoo! on such sales elsewhere in the world. See here and here.

A screen grab of the Yahoo! Japan site.

But Yahoo! Inc told Fairfax Media it lacked the power to impose corporate policies on Yahoo! Japan.

EIA's investigation into the Japanese site turned up 249 whale products for sale.