European activists and researchers accuse the porn giant of not respecting the most basic rules laid down by the GDPR.
You don’t have to be an activist to go to Pornhub or to realize from the home page that the window asking you if you have two minutes to talk about cookies does not exist. But, according to the plaintiffs, the porn site’s violations do not stop there, since it would continue to track your activity even if you are not logged in.
What is Pornhub accused of?
Alessandro Polidoro is a digital rights activist, he is the head of the group that filed a complaint against Pornhub. And the list of grievances he submits is long: according to him, the group he leads found a lot of concerns about the management of private data of Pornhub, and finally resolved to focus only on three of them.
First, Pornhub does not allow you to simply refuse cookies, which are therefore activated by default. The GDPR is however quite clear on the issue and there are now few sites in Europe that do not welcome you with a pop-up. Barely a banner at the bottom of the page informs you that the site uses cookies, only allowing you to click on OK.
Another criticism concerns the site’s algorithm which, according to Alessandro Polidoro, unilaterally and hiddenly assigns users their sexual preference. If the objective is obviously to offer more suitable content to better meet the expectations of the latter – ultimately like Netflix or YouTube – the sensitive nature of the question necessarily changes the perspective. Especially in view of the third criticism made by the group of Alessandro Polidoro.
Indeed, according to the group, Pornhub remains very discreet about the use and possible sharing of the personal data thus collected, in particular between the various companies which belong to MindGeek, owner of the site. However, some tools, such as Privacy Badger, allow the use of certain cookies to be tracked. And according to these tools, Pornhub data is at least shared with Google Analytics, but also the online advertising platform TrafficJunky, which belongs to MindGeek.
And now ?
This complaint does not come at the best time for the porn site, while it is under increased scrutiny from many lawmakers around the world. Pornhub is based in Cyprus, which means it is located on European Union soil, not exactly lenient with digital companies that do not respect its laws. The trial will probably not take place for many years, but we can expect an exemplary decision.
Because, with more than two billion monthly active users, Pornhub is one of the most visited sites in the world, a figure comparable to the most popular social networks, even if its turnover, estimated at 500 million dollars , remains considerably lower. Social networks which, without absolving them, have often been sentenced to very high fines for facts that are a priori less serious. Add in the sensitive nature of the information that has potentially been harvested and the general lack of leniency from lawmakers for the porn industry, and the site could well have a pretty big check to shell out.
Source : WIRED
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