Report: U.S. Hosts Bulk of Child Porn

WINNIPEG, MB — The Canadian Centre for Child Protection has issued a new report which claims that the bulk of commercial child pornography is hosted in the U.S.

The report, entitled "Child Sexual Abuse Images: An analysis of websites by Cybertip.ca," offers a review of public reports of suspected child pornography (CP) made to Canadian child sexual abuse hotline Cybertip.ca.

According to the study, more than half of all CP websites and illegal images were hosted in the U.S. at the time the reports of the offending content were made.

"Child victimization of any kind is a horrifying crime," Canada's Minister of Public Safety, Peter Van Loan, said. "That is why we continue to support the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, which helps bring those to justice who misuse changing technology to victimize children. Through the National Strategy for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation on the Internet, our government continues to enhance the tools law enforcement need to prevent, investigate and prosecute these serious crimes."

Of the 35,111 website incidents processed by Cybertip.ca between September 26, 2002, and March 31, 2009, 15,662 reportedly involved websites hosting CP. As part of the research into these reported websites, 4,110 unique images were examined, with more than 82 percent of these images depicting very young, pre-pubescent children under 12 years of age. More than 35 percent of the images depicted serious sexual assaults.

"What makes this particularly concerning is the very young age of the children in the images. These children are most likely being accessed and sexually abused by someone they know. Not only is it devastating for a child to be abused, but to have the abuse recorded and distributed on the Internet adds another layer of trauma," Executive Director of the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, Lianna McDonald, said. "This is a call to action to all Canadians to learn to recognize the signs of abuse, and to report their suspicions of abuse. We need to disrupt and hopefully stop child sexual abuse and prevent it from being memorialized and traded on the Internet."

The report, conducted in partnership with Bell Canada, found that more than 60 countries are hosting illegal child sexual abuse content. As an indication of the sophistication of these sites, Cybertip.ca observed one website use 212 unique IP addresses across 16 different countries, within one 48-hour period.

The report also found that nearly 78 percent of reported webpages featured at least one image depicting a child less than eight years of age, while many showed infants and toddlers being assaulted, while 83 percent depicted girl children.

According to ASACP's Technology & Forensic Research Director, Tim Henning, the report's findings regarding the bulk of commercial child pornography (CCP) being hosted in the U.S. makes sense. Henning says that since the vast majority of Internet content is hosted in the U.S., it stands to reason that the U.S. hosts the most of any type of content — including CCP.

"The U.S. has free hosts that tend to get abused," Henning said. "To their credit, however, the hosts tend to find and close these sites within a couple days."

Henning told XBIZ that the organized crime gangs behind much of the CCP use botnets to attack millions of unsuspecting user's computers, and use them to send out massive amounts of spam email to advertise the CCP sites and to also steal identities — all in the background without the user's knowledge.

Those behind these schemes operate with virtual impunity, according to Henning, unless they leave their borders, as they tend to operate in jurisdictions where laws against CP do not exist. These criminals are also extremely sophisticated, relying on technologies such as FastFlux DNS to obfuscate their tracks.

"For everything you do, they find ways around it," Henning said. "But the good news is there has been a significant reduction in the numbers of CCP sites online over the past couple of years due to increased efforts directed at eliminating their billing options."

Related:  

Copyright © 2025 Adnet Media. All Rights Reserved. XBIZ is a trademark of Adnet Media.
Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited.

More News

FSC: California's Device-Based AV Law Does Not Apply to Adult

The Free Speech Coalition (FSC) put out an advisory today explaining that California's new device-based age verification law does not apply to adult websites.

Reena Sky Launches New Paysite

Reena Sky has launched her new official paysite, ILoveReenaSky.com.

NextGen Payment Joins ASACP as Corporate Sponsor

NextGen Payment has signed on as the latest corporate sponsor for the Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection (ASACP).

Lauren Phillips, Derek Kage Cap AEBN's Top Stars for 3rd Quarter of 2025

AEBN has revealed its most popular performers in straight and gay theaters for the third quarter of 2025.

XBIZ 2026 Conference to Debut All-New Company Lounges, Community Track

The event website for XBIZ 2026 is now live, unveiling details for North America’s largest adult industry conference, including two all-new show features: Company Lounges and a Community Track.

Mymember.site Integrates VR Functionality

Mymember.site has added virtual reality playback capability to its website management platform.

Texas Patti to Launch Fetish Platform 'EmpireDom'

Performer and content creator Texas Patti is launching a new platform for doms and fetish creators, EmpireDom.com.

Ohio AG Threatens Action Against 'Major' Adult Sites Over AV Law

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost announced today that his office is sending "notice of violation" letters to 19 adult websites for failure to comply with the state's recently enacted age verification law.

Chaturbate Announces 2025 Music Contest Winners

Chaturbate has revealed the winners of its 2025 music competition.

2026 XBIZ Exec Awards Pre-Noms Open With Debut of New 'Impact' Honors

XBIZ is pleased to announce that the pre-nomination period for the 2026 XBIZ Exec Awards, the adult industry’s premier career honor, begins today and runs through Oct. 14.

Show More