The study 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 study was limited to specific country suffixes, and did not include non-country specific domains such as .com and .net.
Region Pages Europe 28,430,600 Pacific 12,352,600 Asia 3,193,000 Latin America 1,048,600 Africa 389,400 Canada 283,600 Caribbean 255,000 Middle East 77,800 Total 46,030,600
“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. These millions of pages of pornography may create serious liability and productivity problems for employers around the world”
While it was expected that most overseas pornography would be in European domains, the study revealed some surprising findings:
-- The .ST domain suffix of the smallest country in Africa, the island nation of Sao Tome, hosts 307,000 pages of pornography - three quarters of all of the 389,000 pages of pornography with African suffixes contained in the SmartFilter v4 database.
-- The only Middle Eastern domain suffix to host pornographic web pages in the SmartFilter database is the Israeli .IL, which hosts 77,800. The only Arab country domain in the database that hosts any pornography is Libyan .LY.
-- The domain suffixes of a number of small islands in the Pacific host a large number of pornographic web pages. The domain of the island nation of Niue hosts an astonishing 3 million pages of pornography on its .NU domain, and other island domains that each host hundreds of thousands of pages of pornography are the suffixes of Tonga, Christmas Island, the Cocos Islands, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.
-- Virtually every country suffix in Europe had some pornographic sites in the SmartFilter v4 database, even very small countries. The .LI suffix of Liechtenstein hosts 27,800 pornographic pages, and the .MC suffix of Monaco hosts 2,400.
-- The top ten country suffixes for hosting pornography in the SmartFilter database were:
Germany 10,030,200 United Kingdom 8,506,800 Australia 5,655,800 Niue 2,947,800 Japan 2,700,800 Netherlands 1,883,800 Russia 1,080,600 Poland 1,049,600 Spain 852,800 Tonga 848,800
"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. These millions of pages of pornography may create serious liability and productivity problems for employers around the world," said Mike Gallagher, senior vice president of product development at Secure Computing. "Given the international nature of the Internet, filtering at the gateway level for networks in businesses, schools and homes will remain for the foreseeable future the only effective way to control Internet pornography."
About Secure Computing
Secure Computing (NASDAQ:SCUR) has been securing the connections between people and information for over 20 years. Specializing in delivering solutions that secure these connections, Secure Computing is uniquely qualified to be the global security solutions provider to organizations of all sizes. Our more than 11,000 global customers, supported by a worldwide network of partners, include the majority of the Dow Jones Global 50 Titans and the most prominent organizations in banking, financial services, healthcare, telecommunications, manufacturing, public utilities, and federal and local governments. The company is headquartered in San Jose, Calif., and has sales offices worldwide. For more information, see http://www.securecomputing.com.
This press release contains forward-looking statements relating to Secure Computing's ability to accurately categorize and restrict customer access to Internet pornography through the company's SmartFilter, N2H2, Bess, and Sentian product lines, and the expected benefits of such categorization, and such statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Among the important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements are delays in product development, undetected software errors or bugs, competitive pressures, technical difficulties, changes in customer requirements, general economic conditions and the risk factors detailed from time to time in Secure Computing's periodic reports and registration statements filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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