29 Jun 2004

Pacific countries key hosts of porn web pages - study

3:11 pm on 29 June 2004

A global study has revealed that the Pacific region hosts over 12 million pornographic web pages on its countries' domain names.

The study, compiled by Secure Computing, also shows that Niue's domain of .nu alone has 3 million pages.

Secure Computing's regional manager, Eric Krieger, says while the figures show a degree of computer literacy in the Pacific they also show that domain regulations may be taken advantage of.

"There are some very smart domain holders who can get a domain quite cheaply and easily and develop an unnecessary site and at the end of the day all you really need is a name and a server and then your plugged into the World Wide Web. I guess some of these countries may not have as stringent regulations for the application of domain names as other countries."

However, Mr Krieger says some Pacific countries may not want to censor what their domains are used for because they will be gaining financially from the pages.