• June 6, 2003

Wal-Mart has already banished men's magazines from its shelves. Now it seems as if women's mags might get similar treatment. Retail's 800-pound gorilla announced at its annual shareholders meeting last Friday that it is testing a system to obscure the covers of a handful of women's mags usually found in checkout lanes. Publications like Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Marie Claire and Redbook will be covered by what spokesperson Tom Williams called "U-shaped blinders."

Currently being tested in a handful of stores, the blinders are designed to cloak the magazines' semi-racy language and photos. They will reach the rest of Wal-Mart's stores by July. "That's to accommodate those customers who are uncomfortable with the language on some of the magazine covers," the Associated Press quoted Williams as saying. The move comes on the heels of last month's decision to remove men's titles like FHM, Maxim and Stuff from Wal-Mart shelves. The chain cited scantily-clad cover models and provocative content - both men's-mag mainstays - as the reason for that move.