Killing porn online spells big bucks

Darlington Jose Hector & R Raghavendra / TNN / Sep 30, 2006, 01:03 IST

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Thanks to the burgeoning crowd of cyber porn surfers, the anti-porn software industry in the country has swelled to a Rs 30 crore market.

BANGALORE: Proof of the pudding is often in eating it. Thanks to the burgeoning crowd of cyber porn surfers, the anti-porn software industry in the country has swelled to a Rs 30 crore market from a mere Rs 10 crore just three years ago.
With porn easily accessible over Internet and mobile phones, parents and corporates are increasingly getting concerned over how their children and employees, respectively, are spending ‘quality' time.Insiders in filtering software industry say over 40 corporates in the country have installed anti-porn software in the past six months.
A number of pornographic sites spread spyware and a system crash is often the end result as employees go on a pleasure-seeking spree on the Web.Corporates have found that employees surf the Net for pornographic content not only at their work stations but also at client bases.
Says Pius M Prasad, HR head of Huawei Technologies, "In my last job, we came across an employee who was found visiting an adult site at a client's office in US. He was fired."

Search engines worldwide take in 68 million requests per day on pornography. This amounts to 25% of the overall search requests in a day. No wonder firms are making a beeline to making a killing in this space. Image Analyzer, a firm specialising in anti-porn software, has formed a JV with Pune-based Visesh Infotecnics to target Asia Pacific market. Crispin Pikes of Image Analyser believes such software will gain acceptance as more homes get wired.

"In an ongoing investment, the Australian government has spent close to $86 million to identify and block pornographic content," says Crispin. "Firms may not usually want to send across a message that their employees have become victims of pornography resulting in reduced productivity levels. But the addressable market for this kind of software is huge. We are in talks with leading mobile operators, computer component manufacturers, enterprises and ISPs among others."
The algorithms for an anti-pornography software are written such that it can detect a porn site going by the extent of nudity exhibited. It does body part identification, curvature analysis and face recognition and comes to the conclusion on whether or not the visual is provocative. An organisation can then define and draw a line on what must be classified as pornographic material.
According to Trend Micro India, an anti-virus company, there has been a boom in the content filtering space in India. "Corporates have stepped URL filtering in the last few months," says country manager Niraj Kushik. "There are domestic enquiries as well. Some parents fear that their anti-porn software is not 100% secure."
Porn watching on cell phone is another popular activity which is difficult to keep a tab on. Customers can download porn content online and pass it on among friends. While the number of children having access to mobile phones is on the rise, service providers are not in a position to deny access to such content today. "There is a minority which enjoys such content on the phone," admits Airtel (Karnataka) CEO Deepak Mehrotra. That number is on the rise and parents are sure to have a worrying time ahead.
Says Varsha P, a mother of a 11-year-old, "I get the feeling that it's too early to put those fileters on my PC, but my friends have started warning me. Maybe it's time."

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