Status of online sperm donation and sperm bank in Japan.

Facilities worldwide offering donor sperm insemination face sperm donor shortages. There are also known dangers of online information about sperm donation and using donated sperm to conceive without the involvement of medical professionals. Therefore, the authors investigated 140 Web sites retrieved by common Japanese search engines using sperm donation-related keywords. The authors assessed them according to criteria, but most were deemed unsafe (96.4%). Ultimately, 2 personal and 3 company Web sites provided adequate information. However, the personal Web sites lacked representative individual information and the company Web sites had issues including high costs, overseas location of facilities performing insemination, and possible non-Japanese origin of donated sperm.