The War on Porn Regular Updates about the Assault on The Adult Industry
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PARIS — There’s a particular kind of chill that runs through an industry when the letters stop being polite reminders and start sounding like countdown clocks.
Earlier this month, France’s digital watchdog Arcom quietly moved from warning shots to something sharper. In a statement released Tuesday, the agency confirmed that, at the beginning of December 2025, it sent enforcement letters to three adult websites it believes were ignoring the country’s age-verification requirements under the Security and Regulation of the Digital Space (SREN) law.
A few weeks passed. Enough time to fix things. Enough time to at least try. Two of the sites didn’t.
So now the tone has changed. Arcom has issued formal notices to those two operators, giving them 15 days to comply with the law or risk being blocked and/or delisted entirely. Fifteen days isn’t much time in tech, but it’s a lifetime in regulatory terms. It’s the kind of deadline that makes inboxes sweat.
The third site isn’t off the hook either. Arcom says it plans to work directly with that operator to evaluate whether its age-verification solution actually does what it claims to do. Not just ticking a box, but functioning in the real world, where friction, privacy, and compliance collide.
Notably, the agency didn’t name the websites involved or disclose where they’re based. That silence feels intentional. This isn’t about shaming specific players; it’s about setting a precedent. The statement frames the move as part of Arcom’s already-telegraphed plan to widen enforcement beyond the biggest platforms and start pulling smaller adult sites into the compliance spotlight.
It’s a reminder that flying under the radar isn’t a strategy anymore. The radar got better.
