Did you know there are websites on the internet that show porn?! Since I spend all day refreshing CelebrityNetWorth over and over, I honestly had no idea "adult" sites even existed. Surely there are just a few of these porn websites and they don't get very much traffic, right? Obviously I'm joking. There are an estimated 4.2 million pornographic websites on the internet, also known as 12% of all websites. Roughly 25% of all internet searches are porn related, aka there are 70 million adult searches per day. What's even more shocking is the fact that most of the largest adult sites in the world are owned by one person, a German man named Fabian Thylmann who was arrested this week on tax charges. Fabian's arrest has shed some light on just how much money you can make as the undisputed king of internet porn… it's impressive. And don't forget to check out our list of the richest porn stars in the world!
Fabian Thylmann is not what you would imagine when you think of the undisputed king of internet porn. Thylmann is a babyfaced year old software programmer who lives a quiet and reclusive life with his wife and two kids in Belgium. Thylmann shuns the spotlight and has rarely been photographed or interviewed publicly. But don't be fooled, Thylmann, through his holding company "Manwin", owns and operates some of the largest adult websites on the planet including Youporn.com, Brazzers, Pornhub, XTube, Reality Kings and many more. Manwin even has an exclusive partnership to run Playboy.com. His websites are some of the largest in the world and his network of traffic rivals that of Google, MSN and Facebook. Each month his sites have 16 BILLION pageviews. Pornhub alone is nearly three times larger than CNN.com. The average visitor to site like CNN.com or CelebrityNetWorth.com stays for 3-4 minutes, the average visitor to a site like Pornhub or Youporn stays for 15-20 minutes. Visitors to one of Thylmann's sites are able to stream both amateur and professionally produced videos for free which has greatly contributed to the demise of the mainstream adult industry. Why would someone buy a DVD or pay for access to an adult website when he/she can get the same content for free off one of Manwin's sites?
Photo via Eigenes Werk/Wikimedia Commons
So exactly how much money is Fabian Thylmann making off as the king of internet porn? According to German tax authorities, Thylmann earns $100 million per year off his global adult empire. German authorities claim Thylmann broke the law by passing much of his revenues and expenses through shell corporations located on tax friendly islands like Cyprus and Curacao. Fabian claims the practice is perfectly acceptable and used by many large corporations like Google and Hewlett Packard. We spoke to an adult webmasters with knowledge of Manwin's operations and were told that part of the problem is Thylmann may be under reporting his revenues by tens of millions and perhaps hundreds of millions. Our source pointed to a rival adult kingpin who is rumored to be making $25 million per month off his network of sites. That would equate to $300 million per year off a network that is apparently half the size Manwin. While Thylmann sits in jail, his lawyers are fighting to clear his name. They assert that this arrest is merely a vendetta funded by a greedy German taxman and mainstream adult companies that have been ravaged by Manwin's success. His defenders point to the similar case of MegaUpload.com founder Kim Dotcom who was extradited from New Zealand to America last July on copyright infringement charges. Dotcom has been largely cleared but his website has been completely shuttered. We will keep you posted on Fabian Thylmann's case.
