Pornhub, YouPorn and Redtube: Court announces reopening of sites against government advice

It didn't take long to see the return of Pornhub and other adult sites from the Aylo group. The courts ruled that the government's banning order was inconsistent with European law on access and the banning of access to websites. This was a logical step, given that France lacks the legal authority to regulate these types of sites, which are hosted in other European Union countries.

A reprieve while waiting for the European Union's position?

Wednesday, June 4th, marked the suspension of the sites YouPorn, Redtube, and Pornhub. Their parent company, Aylo, had announced that all content on its pornographic sites would be suspended until further notice in France. The company itself had made this decision. In a press release, it expressed its refusal to comply with a requirement to verify the age of its visitors. This provision is set out in the law of May 21, 2024, aimed at securing and regulating the digital space, adopted by France.

Now back online, Pornhub is posting a new message to French internet users in which the Aylo group reiterates its position on the regulations concerning access to adult sites: " French citizens deserve regulations that will prevent minors from accessing adult content (...) they also deserve to have their privacy and sensitive data protected." This message allows Aylo to reiterate its position: to offer an age verification system that would not store any personal data of users.

However, the reopening of Pornhub, YouPorn, and Redtube may well be temporary. The Court of Justice of the European Union has been working on this issue for several years and has already implemented the DSA (Digital Services Act), which requires sites to verify users' ages before granting them access. The EU is currently conducting investigations into some of the largest adult sites to verify whether the DSA is being respected on this issue. The CJEU (Court of Justice of the European Union) continues to work on blocking methods or age verification to strengthen the protection of minors from pornography.

Can Pornhub really do without France?

In 2025, Pornhub is indeed the 8th most visited site in the world behind Wikipedia and ChatGPT. Its traffic exceeds world-famous solutions like the social network X (formerly Twitter) or even Amazon's site. France is also a very large consumer of the adult site launched in 2007. According to analyses by the Statista site, the French are in fourth place among the countries that visit Pornhub the most, just behind Brazil, Indonesia, and the United States. It is estimated that in 2024, France alone will have 469 million monthly visits. Aylo, for its part, claims 7 million visits to Pornhub in France every day.

It's therefore legitimate to wonder if the group would really be willing to abandon such a large number of users. The site has a rather traditional, but effective, business model, with advertisements inserted on its pages and within its videos. A premium subscription is also offered, and no one knows what would happen to French subscribers if the site were to be permanently suspended. The next few hours will therefore be decisive in determining whether Aylo will finally give in, be caught up in economic logic, or withdraw permanently.

In the United States, Pornhub has already been forced to permanently withdraw from several states where age verification of Internet users has become effective. Louisiana is one of the first states to have implemented, from the beginning of 2023, a system requiring Internet users to attach a copy of their identity document to access pornographic content. According to the site Mashable , the site's traffic there has dropped by 80%. Pornhub therefore preferred to remove its content itself from the states that have successively implemented similar legislation: Montana, North Carolina, Utah, Virginia, Arkansas, Mississippi, Texas, Kentucky… With a similar discourse to that given today in France and without return most of the time.

Why does Aylo refuse to verify the identity of Internet users?

The issue of online identity and age verification is at the heart of the matter. According to Solomon Friedman, Aylo's current CEO, current legislation lacks the technological resources to be enforced. The CEO expresses his desire to protect minors browsing the web, but without going so far as to collect personal data to unlock access to the sites in question.

In fact, the document adopted and approved by Arcom concerning the verification of the majority of online Internet users is quite permissive. While it requires the sites concerned to implement a "double anonymity" solution (a verification method that allows the site to receive proof of the Internet user's age, without accessing their identity), it allows them to choose the solutions of their choice and which seem most appropriate to respect user confidentiality.