The Canadian owner of some of the largest pornographic websites in the world has confirmed it has stopped operating in France.

The Guardian reported that a spokesperson for Aylo, the parent company to porn websites such as Pornhub, Youporn and RedTube, as saying those websites will stop operating in France on Wednesday, due to a French law requiring adult sites to take extra steps to verify that their users are 18 or older.

It comes amid a looming July age verification deadline for porn websites operating in the United Kingdom.

France exit

“I can confirm that Aylo has made the difficult decision to suspend access to its user-uploaded platforms (Pornhub, YouPorn, RedTube) in France. We will be using our platforms to directly address the French public tomorrow,” a spokesperson for Pornhub was quoted by the Guardian newspaper as saying on Tuesday.

It also reported that the adult sites Pornhub, Youporn and RedTube will on Wednesday display a message denouncing the country’s age verification requirement.

By showing the message rather than Pornhub’s library of adult content, Aylo “is communicating directly with the French people to tell them how dangerous, how potentially privacy-infringing, and how ineffective the French law is”, Solomon Friedman of Aylo’s owner, Ethical Capital Partners, told reporters in a video call on Tuesday.

According to the Guardian, France has this year gradually introduced requirements for all adult websites to have users confirm their age with details like a credit card or ID document.

In a bid to preserve privacy, operators must reportedly offer a third-party “double-blind” option that would keep the platforms themselves from seeing users’ identifying information.

Privacy risk

But Pornhub owner Aylo has reportedly stated this is an ineffective mechanism that puts people’s data at risk from bad actors, hacks or leaks.

The Guardian reported that Aylo is more in favour of countries singling out the owners of operating systems including Microsoft’s Windows, Apple’s iOS or Google’s Android, rather than the porn platforms themselves.

“Aylo is extremely pro the concept of age verification,” executive Alex Kekesi was quoted by the Guardian as telling reporters in a video call.

But requiring individual platforms to confirm visitors’ ages “poses a very serious risk … with respect to your privacy rights”, she added.

It should be remembered that Mindgeek (the previous owner of Pornhub, Redtube, YouPorn and Brazzers) in March 2018 had revealed its own age verification tool called AgeID ahead of a UK law that never materialised.

UK law

But the UK did eventually pass the controversial Online Safety Act, which received Royal Assent in October 2023.

In December 2023 Ofcom published its proposals for acceptable age-verification methods for porn websites, which can include facial recognition/scanning, banking information, photo identification, mobile network operator age checks, credit card checks, or digital identity wallets.

In January 2025 Ofcom (which is in charge of enforcing the Online Safety Act) warned that “robust” age verification checks on all websites containing online pornography, must be in place by July 2025 at the latest.

Privacy campaigners, the Open Rights Group, has previously warned that Ofcom’s proposals pose a “significant” privacy and security risk.