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A. Morichetta, M. Trevisan, L. Vassio, J. Krickl:
"Understanding web pornography usage from traffic analysis";
Computer Networks, Volume 189 (2021), 107909: 1 - 107909: 11.

Pornography is massively available on the Internet, often free of charge. It represents a significant fractionof the overall Internet traffic, with thousands of websites and millions of users. Studying web pornographyconsumption is useful to understand human behavior, and it is crucial for different disciplines, helping insociological, statistical and behavioral research. However, given the lack of public datasets, most of the worksbuild on surveys, limited by multiple factors, e.g., unreliable answers that volunteers may (even unconsciously)give. In this work, we analyze anonymized accesses to pornography websites using HTTP-level traces collectedfrom an operational network. Our dataset includes anonymized traffic from about 15 000 broadband subscribersover three years. We use it to provide quantitative figures on pornographic website consumption, focusing ontime and frequency of use, habits, and trends. We also compare web pornography users´ interests with thosewho do not consume web pornography, showing notable differences.

Web pornography, Network measurements, User behavior

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.comnet.2021.107909