The War on Porn Regular Updates about the Assault on The Adult Industry
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Sometimes the quietest rulings carry the loudest echoes. That’s what happened in Düsseldorf, where the Administrative Court stepped in and hit pause on an order that would’ve forced telecom giants to cut off access to Aylo-owned sites Pornhub and YouPorn.
The “network ban,” first floated back in July, was meant to push the platforms into complying with Germany’s strict age-verification demands — the kind that insist on IDs, facial scans, and other methods that feel more sci-fi than practical for most adults just trying to go about their digital lives.
But on Nov. 19, the Administrative Court said not so fast. The judges ruled that the regional media authority can’t pressure ISPs to block the sites while the appeals are still winding their way through the Higher Administrative Court. In other words: everyone needs to sit tight until the bigger legal questions get sorted.
And those questions are heavy. The court pointed to recent decisions from the European Court of Justice suggesting that Germany’s Youth Media Protection Interstate Treaty might clash with overarching EU law. Essentially, the EU’s rules around the free movement of digital services — especially for companies legally based in other member states, like Aylo in Cyprus — can’t be tossed aside unless strict conditions are met. And Germany’s framework may not pass that test anymore.
Jurisdictional Confusion
If you’ve followed the debate around protecting minors online in Europe this past year, you know it’s become a labyrinth of overlapping rules, clashing authorities, and awkward international finger-pointing.
Take Luxembourg, for example. Late in 2024, French officials tried to get their neighbors to help enforce France’s SREN law by going after webcam platform LiveJasmin. Luxembourg didn’t bite. “We cannot circumvent EU rules just because it is maybe a highly sensitive topic,” an Economy Ministry official said — a line that, honestly, deserves to be engraved somewhere in stone.
Around the same time, the European Commission wrapped up its official guidelines on protecting minors under the Digital Services Act. They even rolled out a “white label” age-verification app, something like a template that sites can adopt to meet DSA requirements. The idea sounds tidy on paper; the reality is… well, still unfolding.
France’s media regulator has also been tangled in debates over whether it can enforce its age-verification rules on companies based elsewhere in the EU. Arcom asked Czech regulators for support, but those agencies pushed back, saying they simply don’t have the legal room to apply French law on their home turf.
That particular dispute revolves around WebGroup Czech Republic, the company behind XVideos.com, and NKL Associates, which operates XNXX.com. Both companies appealed to France’s Council of State, arguing that Arcom can’t compel foreign-based sites to comply with French rules without violating the EU’s “country of origin” principle — a core idea in the Directive on Electronic Commerce.
And then there’s the nonbinding opinion dropped in September by an advocate general at the EU’s Court of Justice, suggesting that France can require foreign-based porn sites to apply French age-verification rules. It was the legal equivalent of throwing gasoline on an already lively fire.
XVideos and XNXX aren’t alone. Several platforms have been called out for failing to meet France’s age-verification requirements under the SREN law. If they don’t comply, Arcom has made it clear it’s ready to follow the German playbook and move toward blocking and delisting.
All of this makes the Pornhub/YouPorn litigation in Germany more than just another case file. It’s shaping into a test of which rules will ultimately win out — national laws drafted in response to rising political pressure, or Europe-wide principles baked into the very idea of a digital single market. And whatever the courts decide, it’s going to ripple far beyond one country or a pair of websites.
