One of the reasons given by the Chinese government why they want GOOG to censor search results is that they want to protect their innocent citizens from pornography. I love data and numbers, so let's see if their claims hold up.

Here is some data on the “Adult” industry: "sex" and "porn" are in top 5 search terms on GOOG for kids under 18. Only 3% of adult websites require age verification. 43% of all internet users view pornographic material. 1/3 of viewers are female. Average time watching internet porn is 15 minutes per session. 20,000 new adult movies per year are released. 800M rentals of adult videos per year in US alone. (Incidentally, the average female performer makes $100,000 to $250,000 per year and the average male makes around $40,000 - sorry guys)

Here's the blockbuster: total worldwide pornography revenue was estimated at $97 bilion in 2008, China is #1 market at 28%, S. Korea bought 27%, Japan was 21%, and the lowly US was only 14% of the worldwide market at $13.6B in sales.

I guess the Chinese government is right - there really is a lot of porn in China. They really do want to protect their citizens from his scourge and that's why they are censoring Google. Yet, I wonder why no one in China hacked into Jenna Jameson or Tera Patrick's gmail accounts. Hmmm...

ISI says GOOG will leave China soon. Beijing does not want foreign companies to dominate their industries. If other companies think GOOG has been treated unfairly, they may reassess their china commitment, which would be very serious.

In other boring news:

RIMM: Bernstein, in a detailed report, acknowledges that international growth could cause 10% upside to their EPS estimates, but still call the stock an “underperform” due to concerns on pricing. (My opinion is that 80% of the bull case is the extremely rapid growth for RIMM in overseas markets, and I believe pricing concerns are overdone).