30 June 2004

BERLIN - Germany has the highest number of porn websites, according to a survey of 100 countries ranked according to the number of sex sites.

In total, Secure Computing counted 46 million pornographic sites in the nations studied (excluding the US) with Germany coming in at the number one spot with more than 10 million.

Next was Britain with 8.5 million with Australia holding the number three position in the survey's top ten with 5.7 million sites.

Surprisingly, the tiny Pacific island of Nuie had almost three million sites giving it the somewhat dubious distinction of being four on the list.

Japan followed with 2.7 million. The Netherlands had 1.9 million, Russia 1.08 million, Poland 1.05 million, Spain 852,800 and Nuie's Pacific neighbour Tonga had 848,800.

In releasing the study, Secure Computing said that it found that the 46,000,000 pages of pornography contained in the SmartFilter database were overwhelmingly concentrated in two regions, Europe and the Pacific.

There were 28 million pages in European domains, and Australia and islands in the Pacific accounted for 12 million pages. Internet pornography was scant in African domains and almost non-existent in Middle Eastern domains, the group said.

The only Arab country domain in the database that hosts any pornography was in Libya.

"Pages of commercial pornography, like spam, continue to not only grow at an alarming rate, but spread to new countries as they join the internet, " said Mike Gallagher, senior vice president of product development at Secure Computing.

"These millions of pages of pornography may create serious liability and productivity problems for employers around the world," he said.

DPA

Subject: German news