A respected market research group believes cell phone users worldwide will spend $1 billion a year on mobile porn by 2008.
And, adds a Yankee Group survey released October 25, that could put as much of a bump into the wireless sector as e-porn did into the fixed-line Internet, even if mobile operators have been reluctant so far to cash in, because e-porn was practically the first profitable Internet service in the second half of the 1990s.
Yankee expects American consumers to pay about $90 million for mobile Adult entertainment within four years’ time. The company also said while American mobile operators fear repercussions if children get access to mobile porn, half of all wireless data traffic may now consist of Adult-oriented content. Vodafone, the British-based mobile operator now considered the world's largest, has child protection measures in place, with others to follow their lead, Yankee said.
"Fear is trumping greed for the moment," said Yankee Group announcing their survey results, "but the two can work together if carriers can develop a solid mechanism for protecting minors and safely profit from the opportunity."
At least one wireless startup catering to Adult users, PhoneBox Entertainment, the creators and operators of PhoneErotica.com, claims to get over 75 million hits a week to its Web site, with most users paying the operator for the airtime only since the service itself is otherwise free.
PhoneBox is believed to be hoping other mobile carriers will let them piggyback onto their billing systems thanks to difficulties with credit card payments, which demand "high tariffs from porn sites," Yankee said, thanks to fake card numbers and other abuses which plague such sites and have provoked credit companies to clamp down even tighter and with more narrow chargeback allowances in the past two years.
Other problems, of course, including the continuing prevalence of phishing attacks and other identity theft scams that put user credit numbers at serious fraud risk. PhoneBox says only five percent of their customers have been willing to send their credit card numbers over Web-connected telephones.
