As an industry that is worth a staggering $10 billion domestically and $90 billion worldwide, it’s astonishing that Syracuse University doesn’t have a major in it: porn.

The top revenue streams of the U.S. porn industry include video sales, websites, erotic dance clubs, magazines and novelties. With the growing power of the Internet, it is no surprise that the value of this sector has eclipsed $3 billion. As more Internet-enabled devices emerge in the marketplace, more people are able to consume digital pornographic content.

Google’s 67 percent market share in the United States solidifies its status as the gold standard in search. The multibillion-dollar international corporation revolutionized the Internet search with advanced algorithms that accurately point users to the desired topic.

Search.xxx is poised to follow in Google’s footsteps by navigating visitors to porn websites that contain the .xxx domain extension. This new search engine, which launched on Sept. 27, has already managed to attain 100,000 unique views and process over 500,000 search queries.

Unfortunately for the company, it has not yet rendered a successful business model for the new search engine. A distinct advantage of this website over others is the ability for users to filter results based on different types of porn.

Thirteen percent of Internet searches overall were queries regarding erotic content, according to Forbes. In addition, 4 percent of the top 1 million visited websites are pornographic sites.

Shady companies manage some pornographic websites, and often these sites are infused with harmful malware. Due to this threat, the IMC Registry integrated a built-in feature that scans each of its registered websites for malicious software on a daily basis.

The IMC Registry has been selling .xxx domains for the past several months. The vast majority of these domains were sold to domain registrars like GoDaddy, for sale at $75.  The IMC Registry withheld roughly 1,000 premium names, which are now the focus of intense bidding by porn-producing companies. Names like Gay.xxx sold for $500,000 and Fetish.xxx sold for $300,000.

After these premium .xxx domain names are sold, the IMC Registry could gross $2 million per year. This domain extension will allow porn-producing companies to more accurately target their audience. Previously used extensions like .us or .com could easily get lost when using a traditional search engine like Bing or Google.

This transition has received acclaim from parent groups because now filter settings will target a specific domain extension as opposed to a plethora of random pornographic websites.

Ironically, universities, retailers and celebrities have been pressured to purchase their own .xxx domain name as a de facto insurance policy. The .xxx domain extension has created pseudo Internet where companies like Target have been forced to purchase a premium domain in an effort to stave off an unwanted pornographic attack.

Northwestern University has also purchased a .xxx domain because it did not want to risk the creation of pornography associated with the university’s image.

The multibillion-dollar online porn industry is undergoing a renaissance in porn reorganization. The porn industry is rarely debated in the intellectual realm, but the new opportunities and risks associated with the new .xxx domain extension are sure to shape the monetary outlook of top pornography producers.

While a pornographic studies major may be out of the question at SU, it is critical to learn about the economics of this incredibly valuable industry.

Jared Rosen is a sophomore advertising and marketing management major. His column appears weekly. He can be contacted at jmrose03@syr.edu or followed on Twitter at @jaredmarc14.

Published on October 2, 2012 at 2:59 am