ISPs get an eyeful of porn bonanza

An online porn bonanza is set to sweep across Europe as ISPs look at 'adult content' to pump up flagging revenues, industry experts predicted today.

Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein internet analyst Kai Kaufmann said: "It wouldn't be surprising if all the major portals moved into pornography, given the slowdown in advertising and the fact that e-commerce isn't really happening."

Kaufmann pointed out that the European internet industry was closely watching the performance of the pornography portal recently set up by Germany's top ISP, T-Online.

He said that the ISP's move with Barcelona-based Private Media Group - made through a Spanish subsidiary, ya.com, to keep the content separate from its own core brand - had the potential to set the agenda for other major internet players looking to supply paid-for content.

"ISPs are looking for alternative portal revenue streams that would result from value content - and T-Online is a leading example of that," Kaufmann said.

Jupiter MMXI analyst, Dan Stevenson, agreed with these predictions: "There will be some people who don't like it, but ISPs will have to decide if the potential damage to its brand outweighs the opportunity to increase value-added sales."

"Adult content is the obvious subscriber serviceto go for, because there is already a proven business model," Stevenson added.

According to Jupiter's latest research almost 40 per cent of Germany's total web traffic in July 2001 was aimed at online porn sites. In Great Britain the figure was 25 per cent of total traffic volume, while in France it was 26 per cent, in Italy 33 per cent and in Spain 42 per cent.

Standard & Poor estimates that the internet porn market will produce sales of $3bn by 2003.