Web Definitions

Close Corporation: A corporation whose shares are held by a small number of shareholders and are not publicly traded.

Foreign Corporation: A corporation doing business in a jurisdiction in which it was not formed.

General Partnership: A partnership in which each partner is liable for all partnership debts and obligations in full regardless of the amount of the individual partner's capital contribution.

Holding Company: A company whose sole function is to own and control other companies.

Joint Venture: A cooperative business agreement or partnership between two or more parties that is usually limited to a single enterprise and that involves the sharing of resources, control, profits, and losses.

Limited Liability Company: An unincorporated company formed under applicable state statute whose members cannot be held liable for the acts, debts, or obligations of the company and that may elect to be taxed as a partnership.

Limited Partnership: A partnership in which the business is managed by one or more general partners and is provided with capital by limited partners who do not participate in management but who share in profits and whose individual liability is limited to the amount of their respective capital contributions.

Partnership by Estoppel: A partnership created by operation of law when a defendant by words or conduct represents himself or herself to the plaintiff or to the public as a partner and the plaintiff relies on the representation to his or her detriment. Many affiliate programs fall within this classification.

"S" Corporation: A corporation with a limited number of shareholders that is treated as a partnership for tax purposes.

Sole Proprietorship: A business owned and controlled by one person who is solely responsible for its obligations.
Business Agreements

Affiliate Terms & Conditions: Legal language defining the relationship between a master site and Webmaster in relation to commissions, business relationship, disputes and acceptable marketing methods.

Contract: An agreement between two or more parties that creates in each party a duty to do or not do something and a right to performance of the other's duty or a remedy for the breach of the other's duty.

Member Terms & Conditions: Legal language on an adult site identifying the guidelines for signing up and viewing material on an adult site.

Model Release: A document establishing the age of a model and the copyright use of images of the model.

Warning Page: An initial page on an adult site warning viewers that they are about to view adult material and establishing that they must be of majority age to view such material.
Site Related

18 USC 2557: A section of the relevant federal law defining the requirements for maintaining proof of age documentation for sexual content models.

Ad Banner: An advertisement on a Web page that links to an advertiser's Web site. Ad banners are the most common unit of advertising on the Web. It's called an ad "banner" because the original online advertisements were always in the shape of a banner, usually at the top of a page. Nowadays, many sizes of online ad banners exist. Full-sized banners measure 468 pixels wide by 60 pixels high.

Adult Verification Service (AVS): One of several independent commercial services designed to protect minors from accessing adult Internet material by using credit card and password verification. An adult site's opening warning screen can use a login process to link to the AVS for membership signup and purchase or confirmation. In addition, surfers who purchase memberships get their own unique ID number allowing them free access to thousands of other linked adult sites. Webmasters get paid commissions from the AVS for sign-ups and referrals through linking banners.

Adult Web Site: Any Web site displaying, offering, or linking to sexually explicit content designed for audiences 18 years and older.

Advertisers: Purchasers of advertising space on others' Web sites, usually in the form of a banner that links to the advertiser's Web site.

Affiliate Advertising Program: A traffic-brokering program whereby advertisers buy guaranteed volumes of traffic from the broker who then pays affiliated Webmasters to display specific sets of program advertising banners on their pages in order to generate the guaranteed traffic volumes.

Anime: An artistic and sensual type of Japanese animation.

Apache: Apache is a freely available Web server that is distributed under an "open source" license. Version 1.3 runs on most UNIX-based operating systems, and on Windows NT/95/98. According to the Netcraft (www.netcraft.com) Web server survey in September 1998, more than 50 percent of all Internet servers were running Apache. Although Windows based systems with Web servers from Microsoft, Netscape, and other companies are probably gaining in terms of numbers, Apache is likely to remain popular in enterprises and server locations (such as universities) where UNIX-based systems are prevalent.

Average Bandwidth: A Web site's total bandwidth usage averaged over one month's time.

Average Daily Click-Through Traffic: The number of times an advertiser's banner is clicked on by surfers in a 24-hour period, averaged over a longer period of time, such as per month.

Average Daily Impressions: The number of times an advertiser's banner is displayed on others' Web pages in a 24-hour period, averaged over a longer period of time, such as per month.

Average Daily Signups: The number of unique purchases by surfers of online services from an advertiser's Web site in a 24-hour period, averaged over a longer period of time, such as per month.

Average Daily Traffic To Home Page: The number of individual visits to a Web site's home page in a 24-hour period, averaged over a longer period of time, such as per month.

Back Bones: The Internet's high-speed data-transmission trunk lines made up of privately owned regional telecommunication cables that serve as major access points to which other networks can connect.

Back Window: An advertising process that uses a special hidden link to direct a surfer who exits a particular Web site to another special directory page featuring several related links and/or banners to selected advertisers.

Bandwidth: The actual amount (or total potential amount) of data transmitted or received through a particular channel per unit of time. In digital systems, bandwidth is data speed in bits per second (bps). Thus, a modem that works at 57,600 bps has twice the bandwidth of a modem that works at 28,800 bps. In a qualitative sense, bandwidth is proportional to the complexity of the data for a given level of system performance. For example, it takes more bandwidth to download a photograph in one second than it takes to download a page of text in one second. Large sound files, computer programs, and animated videos require still more bandwidth for acceptable system performance. Currently, virtual reality (VR) and full-length three-dimensional audio and visual presentations require the most bandwidth of all.

Banner Ad Revenue: Either the total income generated from all the various advertisers' ad banners located on a Webmaster's pages, or only the income generated from a specific ad banner. This revenue can either be in the form of click-through rewards or sign-up bonuses (for example, $0.02 per click-through, or $3 5 per sign-up).

Banner Exchange: A service designed to provide Webmasters with a way to increase traffic to their site by swapping banners with other sites. The banner exchange service usually offers to provide an exchange ratio such as 2:1 or 3:2. This means, for example, that for every three times a banner exchange banner is shown on your site, your banner will be shown on another member's site two times. Some services allow you to have multiple banners with an auto-weighting feature that allows the program to display your most clicked-on banner the majority of the time.

Bestiality: Sexual relations between a person and an animal.

Bit: The basic unit of information in a binary numbering system. The word "bit" derives from the phrase binary digit. Electronic circuitry in computers can detect the difference between two states (high current and low current) and represents these two states as one of two numbers 0 or I. This basic high/low, either/or, yes/no units of information are called bits. Eight bits comprise a byte.

Blind Link: A misleading link created on a site to entice a person to click through to a new site, but directs the consumer to a different subject.

Bondage: Sexual behavior based on a formalized, dominant master and submissive slave relationship. This can extend to the use of restraints and other sadomasochistic behavior.

Browser: A program used to view, download, upload, or otherwise access documents (pages) on the World Wide Web. Browsers read "marked up" or coded pages (usually HTML but not always) that reside on servers and interpret that coding as a Web page. Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer are examples of Web browsers.

Byte: Abbreviation for binary term, a unit of storage capable of holding a single character. On almost all modern computers, a byte is equal to 8 bits. Large amounts of memory are indicated in terms of kilobytes (1,024 bytes), megabytes (1,048,576 bytes), and gigabytes (1,073,741,824 bytes). A disk that can hold 1.44 megabytes, for example, is capable of storing approximately 1.4 million characters, or about 3,000 pages of text.

C: A high-level programming language developed at Bell Labs in the mid 1970's. Although they originally designed it as a systems programming language, C has proved to be so powerful and flexible that programmers used it for a variety of applications, from business to engineering. C is a particularly popular language for programming personal computers because it is relatively small, and it requires less memory than other languages. The first major program written in C was the UNIX operating system, and for many years C was considered to be inextricably linked with UNIX. Now, however, C is an important language independent of UNIX. Although it is a high-level language, C is much closer to assembly language than are most other high-level languages. This closeness to the underlying machine ' language allows C programmers to write very efficient code. The low-level nature of C, however, can make the language difficult to use for some types of applications.

C++: A subset of C, C++ is high-level programming language developed by Bjarne Stroustrup at Bell Labs in 1986. C++ adds object-oriented features. C++ is one of the most popular programming languages for graphical applications, such as those that run in Windows and Macintosh environments.

Capacity: The total bandwidth available to a Web site from its own servers, or provided from a Web hosting service.

Chargeback: The fee (up to $100 or more per transaction) charged by a credit card company to a merchant as a penalty for having to reverse a transaction due to customer dissatisfaction with the original sale. Usually this chargeback fee is nonnegotiable by the merchant. With the rapid growth in the sales of intangible Internet products and services, verification of customer dissatisfaction becomes much more critical since online merchants currently have limited recourse to appealing these chargeback fees.

Chat Boards or Rooms: A site on the World Wide Web where any number of computer users can type in messages to each other in real time (live chat), creating an online conversation. These messages usually appear on an area of the screen next to the user's nickname or handle. Most chat boards or rooms have a particular topic (which you are expected to discuss) but some are purely for meeting other people.

Circle Jerk: The tactic of linking in a continuous loop a number of Web pages covered with related banner ads in order to capture surfers and force them to choose one of the ad banners before they can exit the loop.

Click Program: A type of advertising partnership program designed to pay a Webmaster for advertising that provides click-through traffic to the advertiser's site. Generally, the Webmaster is promised a fixed amount for each unique visitor. Additional revenues may result from any sign ups that result from this directed traffic.

Click-Through: The process in which a Web surfer chooses an ad banner or text link by clicking on it to see the Web site it refers to. Specifically, this process is what the sponsoring site counts as an ad click. In practice, click and click-through tend to be used interchangeably. A click-through, however, implies that the user actually received the advertiser's destination page. Some advertisers are willing to pay only for click-throughs rather than for ad impressions.

Click-Through Rate: The click-throughs per unit of time that a particular ad banner or link generates.

Click-Through Ratio: The ratio of the number of times an advertiser's banner must be displayed on others' Web sites (impressions) before an individual surfer clicks on it to link to the advertised site.

Colocation (sometimes spelled "Co-location" or "Collocation"): The provision of space for a customer's telecommunications equipment on the service provider's premises. For example, a Web site owner could place the site's own computer server on the premises of the Internet service provider (ISP). Or an ISP could place its network router on the premises of the company offering switching services with other ISPs. The alternative to collocation is to have the equipment and the demarcation point located at the customer's premises.

Common Gateway Interface (CGI): A standard way for a Web server to pass a Web user's request to an application program and to receive data back to forward to the user. When the user requests a Web page (for example, by clicking on a highlighted word or entering a Web site address), the server sends back the requested page. However, when a user fills out a form on a Web page and sends it in, it usually needs to be processed by an application program. The Web server typically passes the form information to a small application program that processes the data and may send back a confirmation message. This method or convention for passing data back and forth between the server and the application is called the common gateway interface (CGI). It is part of the Web's HTTP protocol.

Console (Exit, Pop-up, or Pass-Through): JavaScript windows that appear on top of surfers' browsers as they navigate or leave a particular site. These usually offer a series of links and ad banners that try to entice the surfer to click through to an associated advertiser before they can exit the site.

Content Provider: A rental source for any type of content material that Webmasters cannot easily provide themselves, such as static images, live or recorded video, animation, articles, etc. These companies hold legal ownership to their materials but, for a fee, allow contractually specified reproduction on the customer's Web site.

Conversion Ratio: A conversion ratio is based on how many sign-ups an ad produces out of the total number of clicks it receives during a specified time period. This ratio determines the ad's effectiveness and is a way to evaluate the quality of the traffic the ad banner is sending or receiving.

Cookie: A piece of information sent by a Web server to a Web browser that the browser software is expected to save and to send back to the server whenever the browser makes additional requests from the server. Depending on the type of cookie used and the browser's settings, the browser may accept or not accept the cookie and may save the cookie for either a short time or a long time. Cookies might contain information such as login or registration information, online shopping cart information, user preferences, etc. When a server receives a request from a browser that includes a cookie, the server is able to use the information stored in the cookie. For example, the server might customize what is sent back to the user, or keep a log of particular user's requests. Cookies are usually set to expire after a predetermined amount of time and are usually saved in memory until the browser software is closed down, at which time they may be saved to disk if their "expire time" has not been reached. Cookies do not read your hard drive and send your life story to the CIA, but they can be used to gather more information about a user than would be possible without them. Cookies are commonly used to rotate the banner ads that a site sends so that it doesn't keep sending the same ad as it sends you a succession of requested pages. They can also be used to customize pages for you based on your browser type or other information you may have provided the Web site. Web users must agree to let cookies be saved for them, but, in general, it helps Web sites to serve users better.

Cost of Revenue: Cost directly associated with production of revenue: overhead for infrastructure, etc.

Counter: On the Web, a counter is a program that counts and typically displays how many people have visited an HTML page (usually the home page). Many sites include a counter, either as a matter of interest or to show that the site is popular. The counter can be part of a CGI application that logs and analyzes requests. Counter companies provide the service of monitoring sites that request it, counting home page requests, and updating the number of visitors each time the home page is sent. A third-party who monitors the counting of site visitors is called an auditor.

Custodian of Records: The individual maintaining custody of all model releases for content on an adult site. Custodians of Records contact information and location must be listed on the adult site pursuant to 18 USC 2257.

Daily Uniques: The number of first-time visitors to a particular Web site in a 24-hour period.

Dedicated Server: A server that provides Internet services for only a single Webmaster or Web site.

Development Costs: The cost to create and perfect a product.

Digital Subscriber Line (DSL): A technology for bringing high-bandwidth information to homes and small businesses over ordinary copper telephone lines. Digital data is transmitted to your computer directly as digital data and this allows the phone company to use a much wider bandwidth for transmitting it to you. Meanwhile, if you choose, the signal can be separated so that some of the bandwidth is used to transmit an analog signal so that you can use your telephone and computer on the same line and at the same time. Assuming your home or small business is close enough to a telephone company central office that offers DSL service, you may be able to receive data at rates up to 6.1 megabits (millions of bits) per second (of a theoretical 8.448 megabits per second), enabling continuous transmission of motion video, audio, and even 3-D effects. More typically, individual connections will provide from 1.544 Mbps to 512 Kbps downstream and about 128 Kbps upstream. A DSL line can carry both data and voice signals and the data part of the line is continuously connected. DSL installations began in 1998 and will continue at a greatly increased pace through the next decade in a number of communities in the U.S. and elsewhere. ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) is the form of DSL that will become most familiar to home and small business users. ADSL is called "asymmetric" because most of its two-way or duplex bandwidth is devoted to the downstream direction, sending data to the user. Only a small portion of bandwidth is available for upstream or user-interaction messages. However, most Internet and especially graphics- or multi-media intensive Web data need lots of downstream bandwidth, but user requests and responses are small and require little upstream bandwidth. Using ADSL, up to 6.1 megabits per second of data can be sent downstream and up to 640 Kbps upstream. The high downstream bandwidth means that your telephone line will be able to bring motion video, audio, and 3-D images to your computer or hooked-in TV set. In addition, a small portion of the downstream bandwidth can be devoted to voice rather data, and you can hold phone conversations without requiring a separate line. Unlike a similar service over your cable TV line, using ADSL, you won't be competing for bandwidth with neighbors in your area. In many cases, your existing telephone lines will work with ADSL. In some areas, they may need upgrading.

Domain Name: An alphabetic name that identifies one or more numerical IP addresses. For example, the domain name microsoft.com represents about a dozen IP addresses. Domain names are used in URLs to identify particular Web pages. For example, in the URL http://www.nysite.com/index.html, the domain name is mysite.com.

DNS (Domain Name System or Service): An Internet service that translates domain names into IP addresses. Because domain names are alphabetic, they're easier to remember. The Internet however, is really based on IP addresses. Every time you use a domain name, therefore, a DNS service must translate the name into the corresponding IP address. For example, the domain name www.example.com might translate to 198.765.232.4. The DNS system is, in fact, its own network. If one DNS server doesn't know how to translate a particular domain name, it asks another one, and so on, until the correct IP address is returned.

Domain Registrar: Government-appointed companies (NSI and five other test companies currently) who are paid to register and track the ownership of Internet domain names. Because of the potential commercial value of particular domain names, accurate and timely registration and proof of ownership must be maintained. Recent instances of domain name hijacking have revealed security problems with the current registration process.

EProcessors: Third-party electronic commerce solution providers that provide payment processing for online businesses. They usually offer real-time credit card processing, online checks, 900-phone billing, 24/7 detailed business reporting, 24/7 client services, and more.

Exit Site: The site that a surfer chooses to go to (or is automatically presented with) upon leaving a particular Web site. Having accurate exit-site data helps Webmasters better understand traffic flow from their sites and the effectiveness of the banner ads on their sites.

FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions): A collection of answers to the most frequently asked questions relating to a particular topic, company, or Web site. Often provided by Webmasters as a service to assist new visitors and to avoid repeatedly answering their same common questions and problems.

Fetish: A strong sexual interest in an object or a part of the body other than the sexual organs (example: foot fetish).

Frames: A term used to describe a viewing and layout style of a World Wide Web site; it refers to the simultaneous loading of two or more Web pages at the same time within the same screen. Originally developed by Netscape and implemented in their Navigator 2.0 browser, today many other popular Web browsers support this feature. Some Web sites come in two versions; a "frames" and "no frames" version. The frames version usually takes a little longer to load and may contain other "enhanced" features such as Java and animation.

Free Site: A site designed to present free samples of adult content in a specific interest niche in order to collect surfers and direct them on to associated pay sites. Free sites generate revenue from these pay sites based upon total traffic or signups.

FTP: A standard Internet protocol used to transfer Web page files from their creator to the computer that acts as their server for everyone on the Internet. It's also commonly used to download programs and other files to a computer from other servers.

Gross Margin: Total Revenue minus Cost of Revenue minus Operating Expenses.

General and Administrative Overhead: Business expenses that include rent, recruiting, miscellaneous fees. Allocation based on headcount.

Exchange Rate: In a banner exchange program, the ratio for the number of other sites' banners a Webmaster must display before a banner for their Web site gets displayed on another site.

Hit: A hit is a single file request in the log of a Web server. A request for an HTML page with three graphic images will result in four hits in the log: one for the HTML file and one for each of the graphic image files. While a hit is a meaningful measure of how much traffic a server handles, it can be a misleading indicator of how many pages are being looked at. Instead, advertising agencies and their clients look at the number of pages delivered and ad impressions.

Hosting Services: Hosting (also known as Web site hosting or Web hosting) is the business of housing, serving, and maintaining files for one or more Web sites. More important than the computer space that is provided for Web site files is the fast connection to the Internet. Most hosting services offer connections on T- 1 or T-3 lines. Typically, an individual business hosting its own site would require a similar connection and it would be expensive. Using a hosting service lets many companies share the cost of a fast Internet connection for serving files. A number of hosting companies describe their services as virtual hosting. Virtual hosting usually implies that their services will be transparent and that each Web site will have its own domain name and set of e-mail addresses. In most usages, hosting and virtual hosting are synonyms.

Hot Link: A link that is used by one person to promote a site, but is hosted by a second entity that provides bandwidth. A number of sponsor programs allow this while others do not.

HTML: (Hypertext Markup Language) is the set of "markup" symbols or codes inserted in a file intended for display on a World Wide Web browser. The markup tells the Web browser how to display a Web page's words and images for the user. The individual markup codes are referred to as elements or tags. HTML is a standard recommended by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3 Q and adhered to by the major browsers, Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Netscape's Navigator, which also provide some additional non-standard codes. The current version of HTML is HTML 4. However, both Internet Explorer and Netscape implement some features differently and provide nonstandard extensions. Web developers using the more advanced features of HTML 4 may have to design pages for both browsers and send out the appropriate version to a user. Significant features in HTML 4 are sometimes described in general as dynamic HTML. What is sometimes referred to as HTML 5 is an extensible form of HTML called XHTML.

HTTP: The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is the set of rules for exchanging files (text, graphic images, sound, video, and other multimedia files) on the World Wide Web.

ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers): Created in the fall of 1998 in response to a policy statement issued by the US Department of Commerce. This statement called for the formation of a private sector not for-profit Internet stakeholder to administer policy for the Internet name and address system. ICANN chose five companies (America Online, France Telecom's Oleane unit, Register.com, Melbourne IT, and the Internet Council of Registrars) to compete with Network Solutions Inc. (NSI) to test a shared registration system for addresses ending in .com, .net, and .org. Now it's up to these companies to bring real competition to the Domain Name System and differentiate themselves from Network Solutions, which has prospered thanks to a government-granted monopoly on registrations since 1993. During the test, the five companies and NSI will be allowed direct access to register domain names in the registry operated by NSI. The goal of the test is to work out technical difficulties before the process of assigning names can be opened up to include even larger numbers of registrars.

Impressions: The number of times that a particular ad banner or complete Web page is displayed.

Intellectual Property: An idea, invention, trade secret, process, program, data, formula, patent, copyright, or trademark or application, right, or registration relating thereto.

The Internet: The Internet, sometimes called simply "the Net," is a worldwide system of computer networks, a network of networks, in which users at any one computer can, if they have permission, get information from any other computer (and sometimes communicate directly to users at other computers). It was conceived by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the U.S. government in 1969 and was first known as the ARPANet. The original aim was to create a network that would allow users of a research computer at one university to be able to communicate with research computers at other universities. A side benefit of ARPANet's design was that, because messages could be routed or rerouted in more than one direction, the network could continue to function even if parts of it were destroyed in the event of a military attack or other disaster. Today, the Internet is a public, cooperative, and self-sustaining facility accessible to hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Physically, the Internet uses a portion of the total resources of the currently existing public telecommunication networks. Technically, what distinguishes the Internet is its use of a set of protocols called TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol).

Intranet: A private network that is contained within an enterprise. It may consist of many interlinked local area networks and also use leased lines in the wide area network. Typically, an intranet includes connections through one or more gateway computers to the outside Internet. The main purpose of an intranet is to share company information and computing resources among employees. An intranet can also be used to facilitate working in groups and for teleconferences. An intranet uses TCP/IP, HTTP, and other Internet protocols and in general looks like a private version of the Internet. With tunneling, companies can send private messages, through the public network, using the public network with special encryption/decryption and other security safeguards to connect one part of their intranet to another. Typically, larger enterprises allow users within their intranet to access the public Internet through firewall servers that have the ability to screen messages in both directions so that company security is maintained. When part of an intranet is made accessible to customers, partners, suppliers, or others outside the company, that part becomes part of an extranet.

IP Address: An identifier for a computer or device on a TCP/IP network. Networks using the TCP/IP protocol route messages based on the IP address of the destination. The format of an IP address is a 32-bit numeric address written as four numbers separated by periods. Each number can be zero to 255. For example, 1.160.10.240 could be an IP address. Within an isolated network, you can assign IP addresses at random as long as each one is unique. However, connecting a private network to the Internet requires using registered IP addresses (called Internet addresses) to avoid duplicates.

Java: Java is a programming language expressly designed for use in the distributed environment of the Internet. It was designed to have the "look and feel" of the C++ language, but it is simpler to use than C++ and enforces a completely object-oriented view of programming. Java can be used to create complete applications that may run on a single computer or be distributed among servers and clients in a network. It can also be used to build small application modules or applets for use as part of a Web page. Applets make it possible for a Web page user to interact with the page.

The major characteristics of Java are:
• The programs you create are portable in a network. Your program is compiled into Java bytecode that can be run anywhere in a network on a server or client that has a Java virtual machine. The Java virtual machine interprets the bytecode into code that will run on the real computer hardware. This means that individual computer platform differences such as instruction lengths can be recognized and accommodated locally just as the program is being executed. Platform-specific versions of your program are no longer needed.
• The code is "robust," here meaning that, unlike programs written in C++ and perhaps some other languages, the Java objects can contain no references to data external to themselves or other known objects. This ensures that an instruction cannot contain the address of data storage in another application or in the operating system itself, either of which would cause the program and perhaps the operating system itself to terminate or "crash. " The Java virtual machine makes a number of checks on each object to ensure integrity,
• Java is object-oriented, which means that, among other characteristics, similar objects can take advantage of being part of the same class and inherit common code. Objects are thought of as "nouns" that a user might relate to rather than the traditional procedural "verbs." A method can be thought of as one of the object's capabilities or behaviors.
• In addition to being executed at the client rather than the server, a Java applet has other characteristics designed to make it run fast.
• Relative to C++, Java is easier to learn. (However, it is not a language you'll pick up in an evening!)
Java was introduced by Sun Microsystems in 1995 and instantly created a new sense of the interactive possibilities of the Web. Both of the major Web browsers include a Java virtual machine. Almost all major operating system developers (IBM, Microsoft, and others) have added Java compilers as part of their product offerings.

JavaScript: JavaScript should not be confused with Java. JavaScript, which originated at Netscape, is interpreted at a higher level and is easier to learn than Java but lacks some of the portability of Java and the speed of bytecode. Because Java applets will run on almost any operating system without requiring recompilation and because Java has no operating system-unique extensions or variations, Java is generally regarded as the most strategic language in which to develop applications for the Web. However, JavaScript can be useful for very small applications that run on the Web client or server.

Link: Text or image area on a Web page that a user can click on to "connect to" or reference another document. Many possibilities exist for what that document can be. Most commonly, links are thought of as what connects two Web pages or Web sites. They can also, however, be referencing a different part of the same document, linking to a file that will download to your computer or triggering the launching of an external or helper application that will then process the clicked-on file. What actually occurs at a link is determined by the file's MIME type that is configured (setup) on your computer system to make certain things happen when a N41ME type is clicked on. For example it is configured in your browser preferences to display Web page files whenever a file whose MIME extension is HTML. Links are also called hyperlinks, hypertext and hot links and they are coded in HTML by Web page authors.

Link Exchange: A formal reciprocal agreement in which member sites offer links to each other's sites for the purpose of increasing surfer traffic and increasing search engine popularity ratings.

Live Feed: A source for real-time streaming video (that is, the event depicted is occurring in the present time).

Lolita: A precociously seductive girl, derived from Lolita in Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, 1955.

Market Niche: A unique, specialized area of a broader market that can be targeted with specifically designed products or services.

Market Penetration: How much of the market niche a company plans to reach.

Market Share: The percentage of the total sales of a given type of product or service that is attributable to a given company.

Membership Site: A site in which consumers subscribe to gain access to a collection of adult content. Usually charged on a monthly basis.

Metric: A unit of measurement. Also, use of statistical analysis and modeling to describe the numerical relationships between key business, marketing, or economic factors; those factors that can be measured using various analytical techniques.

MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions): The MIME standard is universally used by Web Servers to identify the files they are sending to Web clients, in this way new file formats can be accommodated simply by updating the browsers' list of pairs of MIME-Types and appropriate software for handling each type.

Mirroring: Refers to the process of copying a Web site or set of files on a computer server to another computer server (mirror site) in order to reduce network traffic, ensure better availability of the Web site or files, or make the site or downloaded files arrive more quickly for users closer to the mirror site. Mirroring is the practice of creating and maintaining these mirror sites. A mirror site is an exact replica of the original site and is usually updated frequently to ensure that it reflects the content of the original site. Mirror sites are used to make access faster when the original site may be geographically distant (for example, a much-used Web site in Germany may arrange to have a mirror site in the United States). In some cases, the original site (for example, on a small university server) may not have a high-speed connection to the Internet and may arrange for a mirror site at a larger site with higher-speed connection and perhaps closer proximity to a large audience.

News Group (or Newsgroup): An online forum for discussion about a particular subject consisting of notes written to a central Internet site and redistributed through Usenet, a worldwide network of news discussion groups. Usenet uses the Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP). Newsgroups are organized into subject hierarchies, with the first few letters of the newsgroup name indicating the major subject category and subcategories represented by a subtopic name. Many subjects have multiple levels of subtopics. Some major subject categories are: news, rec (recreation), soc (society), sci (science), comp (computers), and so forth (there are many more). Users can post to existing newsgroups, respond to previous posts, and create new newsgroups. Newcomers to newsgroups are requested to learn basic Usenet "netiquette" and to get familiar with a newsgroup before posting to it. A FAQ is provided. The rules can be found when you start to enter the Usenet through your browser or an online service. You can subscribe to the postings on a particular newsgroup. Some newsgroups have a designated person serving as moderator who decides which postings to allow or to remove. Most newsgroups are unmoderated.

Online Check: A payment method whereby the payer submits information to the online merchant (or to a third-party holding company) about their checking account and authorizes either a single withdrawal or regular series of withdrawals.

Paid Site: A Web site that offers content only to its paying membership. These members are encouraged to subscribe on an ongoing basis using the promise of fresh, targeted content that will be provided on a regular basis. Many paid sites offer a limited-tour for a onetime trial payment.

Pay-Per-Click Search Engine: Search engines that auction placement under keywords which eliminates the need for optimizing the site in question.

Personals: Online versions of personal classified ads that are designed to allow those placing the ads to meet other people with the same romantic or sexual interests.

Pic Post: An adult Web site specializing in erotic pictures.

Pipes: Networking jargon for the physical connection to a computer network.

Primary Content Producer: An individual or entity physically producing adult content often for resale or leasing.

Product Development: Process of creating and perfecting new or improved products. (New Product Development: process of conceiving, designing, developing, testing, and bringing to market a new product.)

Protocol: (Pronounced PROH-tuh-cahl), the special set of rules for communicating that the end points in a telecommunication connection use when they send signals back and forth. Both end points must recognize and observe the protocol. Protocols are often described in an industry or international standard. On the Internet, there are the TCP/IP protocols, consisting of

• TCP (Transmission Control Protocol), which uses a set of rules to exchange messages with other Internet points at the information packet level
• IP (Internet Protocol), which uses a set of rules to send and receive messages at the Internet address level
• HTTP, FTP, and other protocols, each with defined sets of rules to use with other Internet points relative to a defined set of capabilities
Public Domain: The realm or status of property rights that belong to the community at large, are unprotected by copyright or patent, and are subject to appropriation by anyone. Redirect: The process of using a special or concealed link to direct a surfer's click through or exit request so that instead of the surfer arriving at their anticipated Web site destination, they arrive at one selected by the designer of the link instead. Referring Site: The Web site from which the surfer made the decision to click through to another advertised or linked site.

Search Engine: A search engine is a type of software that creates indexes of databases or Internet sites based on the titles of files, keywords, or the full text of files. The search engine has an interface that allows you to type what you're looking for into a blank field. It then gives you a list of the results of the search. When you use a search engine on the Web, the results are presented to you in hypertext, which means you can click on any item in the list to get the actual file. Search engines on the Web consist of four elements:

• A program that roams the area to be searched, collecting data records (typically, Web pages) and links to more data (These are variously known as spiders, worms, crawlers, or other colorful names.)
• A database or collection of records recovered by the spiders or other type of collector
• An index of the database collected to enable fast access to terms that the user searches for and their supporting records
• A search interface (the form in which the user enters search terms and the software behind it that queries the index, retrieves matches, and ranks for relevance and organizes the data for follow-on searches)
Each of the major search engines differs in its approach to these four elements.

Search Engine Optimization: A variety of methods used in an attempt to place a site high under particular keywords on a search engine.

Secondary Content Producer: An individual or entity using the content of a Primary Content Producer.

Server/Client: 1) In general, a server is a computer program that provides services to other computer programs in the same or other computers. The computer that a server program runs in is also frequently referred to as a server (though it may contain a number of server and client programs). In the client/server programming model, a server is a program that awaits and fulfills requests from client programs in the same or other computers. A given application in a computer may function as a client with requests for services from other programs and a server of requests from other programs. Specific to the Web, a Web server is the computer program (housed in a computer) that serves requested HTML pages or files. A Web client is the requesting program associated with the user. The Web browser in your computer is a client that requests HTML files from Web servers.

Site Directory: A Web site that features a sorted index of links to a variety of other Web sites, organized by category, often including a short description of the content featured on each site listed.

Site Promotion: The various methods of advertising available to a Webmaster that are designed to drive traffic to a specific Web site.

Spam: Unsolicited Commercial E-mail [UCE]. Messages sent without permission to e-mail accounts and newsgroups to name a few.

Sponsors: The advertisers that agree to buy advertising on a particular Web site.

Stickiness: The ability of a Web site to attract and hold the attention of surfers; the stickier the site, the longer a surfer is inclined to linger and explore its content.

Surf, Surfer: In using the World Wide Web, to surf is to either explore a sequence of Web sites in a random, unplanned way, or simply use the Web to look for something in a questing way. As the term is ordinarily used, if an Internet user is going to one specific site that they already know about, they aren't surfing. The term suggests an analogy between an ocean surfer looking for great waves and a Web surfer looking for great sites.

Text Link Revenue: The revenue generated (per unit of time) by a formal advertising agreement based upon payments for click-throughs from a text-based link found in a specific site directory.

TGP: Thumbnail Gallery Posting. Sites where you can submit single adult image pages to attract traffic to a pay site.

Traffic: The number of unique visitors to a particular Web site per unit of time.

Traffic Brokering: A revenue generating program whereby advertisers buy guaranteed volumes of traffic from the broker (a business that negotiates volume buying and selling of products or services) who then pays affiliated Webmasters to display specific sets of program advertising banners on their pages in order to generate the guaranteed traffic volumes.

Traffic Drivers: Individuals or entities that develop methods for moving consumers to particular sites in exchange for a commission on the volume of traffic or memberships.

Unique: The number of first-time visitors in a 24-hour period to a particular Web site.

URL: A URL (Uniform Resource Locator) (pronounced YU-AHR-EHL) is the address of a file (resource) accessible on the Internet. The type of resource depends on the Internet application protocol. Using the World Wide Web's protocol, the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), the resource can be an HTML page, an image file, a program such as a CGI application or Java applet, or any other file supported by HTTP. The URL contains the name of the protocol required to access the resource, a domain name that identifies a specific computer on the Internet, and a hierarchical description of a file location on the computer. An HTTP URL can be for any Web page (not just a home page) or any individual file.

Voyeur: A person with an exaggerated interest in secretly viewing the activities of others for sexual gratification.

Web Ring (or Webring): A way of interlinking related Web sites so that you can visit each site one after the other, eventually (if you keep going) returning to the first Web site, Typically, users can also elect to go backwards through the ring of sites, skip a certain number at a time, visit sites randomly, or see a list of all the sites on the ring. A ring is managed from one site which includes a CGI application that can select random sites and bypass sites that have dropped out or aren't reachable. The ring idea seems to have caught on as a more dynamic alternative to the list of "favorite sites" that many Web sites offer. The originator of the idea, Sage Weil (now 19 and in college), started the first ring in May 1995. With several collaborators, Sage has created WebRing, a Web ring management system. As of April 1998, there were over 40,000 Web rings using the system.

Webmaster: A person who either creates and manages the information content (words and pictures) and organization of a Web site, or manages the computer server and technical programming aspects of a Web site, or both.

World Wide Web (Web): All the resources and users on the Internet that are using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).