[IP] Re: Porn in the USA: Conservatives are biggest consumers

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Brock N. Meeks" <bmeeks@cox.net>
Date: March 1, 2009 1:50:27 PM EST
To: <dave@farber.net>, <jwarren@well.com>
Subject: Re: [IP] Porn in the USA: Conservatives are biggest consumers

Leaving the original <ahem> thrust of this message aside, my foremost
question was "how did the researcher obtain this data?"

I've known Jim Warren for a couple of decades and I know how he values
privacy, which is why I'm curious as to why Jim didn't raise the subject
himself.

In the New Scientist article, we read the researcher has a client that  
runs
adult entertainment web sites and that this company provided the  
researcher
"with roughly two years of credit card data from 2006 to 2008 that  
included
a purchase date and each customer's postal code."

Say what?  I'm sure the last thing these subscribers thought their  
credit
card info would be used for was any kind of social behavior study.

Perhaps the "privacy" policies of such web sites informed subscribers  
that
such a use of their information would be possible (I've not studied the
privacy policies of such web sites, I just look at the pictures...  
Wait...)

If say, oh, for example, the Airline industry, turned over this kind of
"anonymized"  credit card data to homeland security for a study of
(whatever) I think Jim would be more than a bit concerned.

Now, I suppose such a hypothetical sets up a comparison as to who is the
more trustworthy:  the adult entertainment industry, the researcher, the
airline industry or Uncle Sam.  I leave that debate to more informed
colleagues.

--Brock






On 3/1/09 10:21 AM, "David Farber" <dave@farber.net> wrote:

> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Jim Warren <jwarren@well.com>
> Date: February 28, 2009 4:27:59 PM EST
> To: Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>
> Subject: Porn in the USA: Conservatives are biggest consumers
>
> From the New Scientist - http://bit.ly/ZkOq
> 27 February 2009 by Ewen Callaway
>
> Americans may paint themselves in increasingly bright shades of red
> and blue, but new research finds one thing that varies little across
> the nation: the liking for online pornography.
>
> A new nationwide study (pdf) of anonymised credit-card receipts from a
> major online adult entertainment provider finds little variation in
> consumption between states.
>
> "When it comes to adult entertainment, it seems people are more the
> same than different," says Benjamin Edelman at Harvard Business  
> School.
>
> However, there are some trends to be seen in the data. Those states
> that do consume the most porn tend to be more conservative and
> religious than states with lower levels of consumption, the study  
> finds.
>
> ...<big snip>...






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