Mindgeek, the company running the biggest porn sites in the world, plans to block YouPorn and Pornhub in France rather than find themselves outlawed because of a law passed in 2020.
The threat has been looming for many months over MindGeek’s head: either they find a way to prevent minors from accessing their porn sites, YouPorn and Pornhub, or the Arcom will block these platforms themselves. Faced with this technical and legal puzzle, the Canadian investment fund is thinking instead of throwing in the towel and preventing its sites from operating in France.
Mindgeek has until July 7 to put in place measures to verify the real age of visitors. Without this, platforms offering content for adults are threatened with being purely and simply blocked on French territory. The Canadian fund Ethical Capital Partners, owner in particular of Pornhub and YouPorn, is ready to abandon the hexagonal market.
YouPorn and Pornhub bosses plan to block their access in France
According to an ECP associate, the only way to implement effective visitor age verification is through ” identity verification on smartphones themselves “, a solution which, to believe, “could be implemented tomorrow”, if the authorities and the manufacturers of smartphones agreed on this point. In the United States, the company has already had to deal with many such requests. It has adopted various and varied measures to comply with the law. That said, in Utah, MindGeek preferred to block access to its platforms rather than having to process visitors’ personal data directly.
Suddenly, according to Solomon Friedman, “the use of VPNs exploded”. He adds, “We follow the law in all jurisdictions where we operate.” MindGeek was once in the limelight for allowing the dissemination of rape videos. The company has since been acquired, and has cleaned up its sites. No less than 8 million videos of non-consensual acts have been removed from YouPorn and Pornhub. These two sites combine no less than 108 million daily visitors.