Pornhub believes that big tech companies should verify user age in their app stores and operating systems. Website-level age verification has proven to be an unreliable means of protecting minors.
Pornhub believes that big tech companies should verify user age in their app stores and operating systems. Website-level age verification has proven to be an unreliable means of protecting minors.
«Based on our real-world experience with current age verification laws, we strongly support the initiative to protect minors online. However, we believe that website-based age verification approaches are largely flawed and counterproductive,» said Anthony Penhailom, general counsel at Aylo, which owns adult services Pornhub, Brazzers, Redtube, and YouPorn, in a letter, according to Ars Tecnica.
The letter states that website-based age verification methods «have failed to achieve their primary purpose: protecting minors from accessing age-inappropriate material online.»
Aylo claims that device-based authentication is a better solution to this problem, because after determining a user’s age using a phone or tablet, their age information can be transmitted via API to adult sites.
This letter was sent to Apple, Google, and Microsoft following the passage of age verification laws in the US and UK, which require users to upload ID or other personal documents to prove age.
Pornhub has seen a significant drop in traffic from regions where these laws have come into effect. In particular, Pornhub has lost almost 80% of its users in the UK since the implementation of the Internet Safety Act.
The company argues that trusting age verification to third-party sites is a privacy risk and that people will simply seek out adult content on platforms that do not comply with the law.
«We are seeing an exponential surge in searches for alternative adult sites that do not have any age restrictions or safety standards,» Pornhub noted.
