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This is an important and interesting book-it provides an overview of research carried out by an academic research team (under the banner Beyond the Gaze BTG) using both quantitative and qualitative methods into how the internet have affected the UK sex industry. I am not a fan of the term Sex work as I find it to broad, covering prostitution (provided by female male and transsexuals) as well as web-camming, adult films, phone sex, erotic dance and so on-this book is mostly about prostitution with camming as an aside -but does contain a section on Policing the sex industry with interviews of a fair number of police representatives.This is not the first largescale survey conducted into internet based sex industry-in 2009 Suzanne Jenkins as part of her PhD surveyed 483 prostitutes, 239 of them were UK based (Jenkins,S 2009 “Beyond Gender: an examination of exploitation in Sex Work” University of Keele but this BTG survey is by far the largest with 652 UK respondents answering a questionnaire and 10% of that number were interviewed.It is important to use both quantitative and qualitative methods-one of the criticisms of the purely qualitative research has been how so-called „telling‟ examples can be used as evidence of some apparent phenomenon without the generality of such fragments being properly addressed. This issue has been raised by various commentators in the context of sex-work and also human trafficking, because relying on individual personal testimonies without any accurate indication of their prevalence is open to abuse. And here we get quantitative research in abundance. So what do we learn?Firstly that a large proportion of internet based prostitutes started in their 20s and thirties-only five percent started when they were under 18-as the authors state “A considerable number of studies already exist which contradict assertions that most people who sell sex were children when they first entered the sex industry”Also that over a third were comparatively highly qualified with bachelors or higher degree only 5% had no qualifications which suggests that on the whole they are not forced into prostitution by the lack of viable alternatives. While for some, prostitution is a full time job others combine prostitution with other jobs, childcare or other interests. What comes out clearly is that there is a spectrum of experiences and ways of working in prostitution-there is no such thing as a representative prostitute. And the same goes for earnings, some prostitutes choose to be low volume others want to maximise income, so the number of clients per week may be up to thirty but the most frequent between 1-10. The same goes for earnings-from less than £500 a month to more than £4000, depending on hours worked and fees charged. When looked at over a year just over a half earn less than £20k pa-although some (about 2%) earned over £100kThere is a persistent narrative that prostitution is inherently violent but in the last five years 78% never experienced sexual assault,73% never experienced threats of violence, 84% never experienced physical assault-all this contrasts with “prostitution is inherently violent” narrative- indeed“ while the methods of data collection were different and thus caution should be exercised in interpreting finding, comparing the proportion of sex workers in Table 4.1 who had experience violence at work such as physical assault, theft or robbery in the past 12 months with the occupations in CSEW (The crime survey for England and Wales , Office of National statistics2016 Overview of violent crime and sexual offences) deemed to be at higher risk of violence , the incidence of physical violence encountered by sex workers was broadly similar to that experienced by health and social care professionals and slightly lower than that for protective occupations”…………….. our research highlights that whilst levels of violent crime in the online sector appear to be relatively low (although not insignificant) particularly when compared to the street sector, the growth of the online sector to be the largest sector of the UK sex industry has seen a shift in crime trends within sex work. Salient within this change has been is the prevalence of crimes which are digitally enabled ,particularly those which exploit the sex workers concerns about privacy and identity violations.What about the Police? The BTG group carried out interviews with 35 police representatives and interviewed 56 police officers from around the UK and found that knowledge and policing of the sex industry was patchy. Some forces would only react to complaints from the public feeling they had better things to do than police consensual sex-which is after all legal in the UK even when money changed hands. Others concerned over the possibility of trafficking would make raids on premises, usually finding that the occupants claimed to be working on their own volition-occasionally charges of brothel keeping were made. Other forces just kept tabs on advertising trying to scope the extent of prostitution on their patch and looking for “indications of trafficking” such as rapid movement of prostitutes from place to place-seemingly being ignorant of the fact that many sex workers working on their own volition tour spending a day or so in one town before moving on. There does not as yet seem to be any coordinated attempt between forces to share intelligence which might help fight trafficking.This book is something of an interim publication-really for the general public. The real meat will be from a whole series of academic papers and briefings –which will include the results of surveys of clients –also on interviews of those who run web platforms aimed at sex workers.The book could not be more timely as the Home Affairs Select Committee on Prostitution was “dismayed to discover the poor quality of information available about the extent and nature of prostitution in England and Wales”. Well be dismayed no longer this study certainly helps fill that gap.