In China, offshore operators of Chinese-language porn sites are raking in the big bucks. Local X-rated sites have shown that they pale in comparison to the foreign sites, which have a broader selection of adult content.

These websites are blatantly breaking the law of the land since Internet pornography is illegal under Chinese law. Chinese officials started making attempts to shut down these foreign sites but they have previously stated that it is not a simple task; more than 60 percent are hosted on servers outside of the country. Issues outside of the country translate to outside of the China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Center’s jurisdiction.

The CIIRC said that they persuaded more than 4,000 domestic sites to ban links to adult-content sites. Majority of the Chinese users use online-prepayment services similar to Paymate and PayPal to purchase porn subscriptions. However, the government has been asking such prepayment services to thoroughly review and screen out user accounts for any illegal transactions.

The CIIRC recorded over 450,000 complaints last year about potentially illegal websites with half relating to adult entertainment. China adopted a nationwide firewall to block users from accessing porn-related material but it is unclear why the firewall has still been ineffective.