Believe it or not but the porn on the Internet is as old as the Internet itself. Pornographers are responsible for many early innovations in internet marketing (such as subscriptions and pop up ads) and female entrepreneurs were among the most successful in the adult business.

Danni Ashe

One of these women, a stripper named Danni Ashe learned HTML on vacation and in July 1995 launched her own fan site Danni.com (also known as Danni’s Hard Drive) charging $15 a month for access. Hours later after her site was launched the volume of traffic it received had overloaded the servers causing the system shutdown.

Before long, Ashe was making $2.5 million a year and reportedly using more bandwidth than all of Central America.

 
Danielle Ashe (real name Leah Manzari) was born in Beaufort, South Carolina, the United States on January 16, 1968. Her naturally large 32FF tits contributed to her popularity as an adult performer. Fun fact: Ashe is the only woman in the world who appeared on the cover of both the Wall Street Journal and Juggs magazine and earned the status of “the most downloaded woman on the Internet”.

By 2001, Danni’s website was estimated to be worth US$30 million. By 2003, she had 50 full-time employees, a studio in Los Angeles and Arena magazine ranked her fourth among the “50 Most Powerful People in Porn” list. Ashe was making a million dollars a year and also acting as an industry advocate: she testified before a government panel regarding “Marketing Adult Materials Online” In March 2000, and in 2004, Ashe was featured as herself on the HBO documentary,

Danni’s Hard Drive was sold in 2004 and then again in 2006 to Penthouse Media Group Inc for $3 million.

Daily Mail lawsuit:
In September 2013, Ashe filed a defamation lawsuit against the newspaper Daily Mail Online seeking US$3 million in damages. Daily Mail used her image to illustrate an article about an HIV-positive female performer. In January 2017 the parties had settled out of court.