"Huang was detained by police on suspicion of disseminating pornographic materials," the Shanghai Public Security Bureau (PSB) said in a (in Chinese) that identified the woman only by her surname, Huang.

Pornography is illegal in China, but remains widely accessible on the Internet. The PSB statement, released Friday, did not say when Huang was detained.

Shanghai police said Huang's video, called 'East Building Kappa Girl,' first appeared online sometime before the end of October and spread quickly among Chinese Internet users. The name of the video is an apparent reference to the sportswear section of a Shanghai department store where Huang worked.

"Based on incomplete statistics, in November alone tens of thousands of Internet users searched on Baidu for information about Kappa Girl every day," the PSB statement said, referring to China's most popular Internet search engine.

Huang hoped to capitalize on her notoriety by selling interviews and advertising space on her blog, the official China Daily newspaper on its Web site. On her blog, Huang offered to give interviews for 30,000 yuan (US$4,364), the report said.