As the technology industry in the Bay Area continues to grow, making more computer and tech savvy programmers rich, so too does Silicon Valley's sex workers.

The alleged murder of a 51-year-old Google executive Forrest Hayes last November has placed a national spotlight on the sex industry in the nation's tech-capital, USA Today reported

Earlier this week, alleged prostitute Alix Tichelman was arrested on suspicion of manslaughter for the death of Hayes. Police said they believe Tichelman, who charged clients $1,000 for her sexual services, left Hayes to die on his yacht in Santa Cruz, California after injecting him with heroin.

"I continue to see an increase in the amount of technology clients I see here in the Bay Area," said 28-year-old sex worker Siouxsie Q.

Q, who is a sex worker activist, writes a SF Weekly column and has a podcast titled "The Whorecast," told USA Today that it is not unusual to see the sex industry thrive in areas where a lot of money is being made.

"Anytime you have a lot of young men coming West to seek their fortunes, the sex worker industry responds," Q said.

The San Jose Mercury News reported that in 1997, when the dot-com boom was at its height, the technology industry was a "prime target for trafficking" because of the "lonely single men with money to burn."

A sex worker who services young, rich men told CNN last year that she made "close to $1 million" for her work. To attract such clients, she said she would wear shirts that read "Winter is coming" and "Geeks make better lovers."

Q told USA Today that most of her clients, who range from 21 to 61 years old, pay to just interact with someone in person and not through a computer screen.

"So much of what my clients pay for is that both of us turn off our cellphones and we have two to three hours of connecting with another human being that is not through the interface of a screen or phone and has nothing to do with whether someone's stock is going to drop or not," she said.

Some of the growth in the sex industry boon can be attributed to certain websites that allow customers seeking a sex worker to do so more discreetly. These anonymous websites match a client with a prostitute and also helps them avoid being arrested or assaulted, according to USA Today.

One of those sites is preferred411.com, which claims that it works as a "screen service for those who seek only the most discreet experiences in upscale adult companionship." The service offers annual memberships for $129 and is available in the entire country as well as Guam.

However, the FBI has been cracking down on several of these online services and recently shut down one website that had been active for a decade in the Bay Area, USA Today reported.

The Internet has allowed the sex industry to become "extraordinarily efficient," said Scott Cunningham, an associate professor at Baylor University who studies the economics of prostitution.

"Before the Internet, clients didn't know where to find the prostitutes and prostitutes did not know where to find the clients. If you think about it in an economic sense, the Internet has removed a lot of the friction from the market," Cunningham said. "And when you reduce search friction, you get a lot more searching and a lot more of that activity."