I would go check that state by state. Louisiana for example is very clear that descriptions of sexual intercourse are included.
The cheapest one I found is Frequently asked questions - Go.cam
The cost is 0.03 euro per verification. What you could maybe do is have a age verify on users who signup and then those are only verified once and they can simply login to see all the content.
Wow… well that’s strict. I guess they must have banned a lot of literature then. That’s just crazy.
I’m in the UK, so I have little (zero) interest in what a Louisiana Republican wants. 
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The UK is up to the same shenanigans.
That’s a good article, which also shows how stupid the rules are. So text is fine but the same text read out loud is porn and therefor illegal.
Well I think the really big question for most of us is what happens if you’re outside the country who has the age verification rules? Can the UK in this example do anything about a site / company in the EU or USA? If so how, what exactly can they do? Block? Issue fines somehow anyway or?
Apparently they do explicitly have the option to fine foreigners. On paper. But nobody knows yet if they’ll bother or if authorities in other countries would work with them to enforce the fines.
They also have the authority to block websites in the UK and that seems the more likely scenario.
And sure, people can circumvent those blocks with a VPN but you’ll always lose a significant chunk of traffic anyway because your average user barely knows what a VPN is let alone how to use one (and it’s illegal for porn sites to tell UK users how to lol).
Well, here it gets difficult.
The US and UK can in theory sue you/your company, they can also enforce bans though service provider who are home in the UK, lets say if you hoster is there or your bank.
If they get a court ruling against you, they won’t be able to enforce that probably. It would first need to go through a court in your country and only if that court rules that its enforcable they can proceed. Its not very likely that such rules from foreign courts would be enforceable as there is not even a 100% comparable EU law or state law in the EU. Under the DSA age checks are intended. won’t go too much into that. But its not comparable to the laws in the UK or US.
Just wanted to give an update.
Kanses started to sue sites too now.
The interesting thing is that at least one of the sites uses AV and another is a small affiliate site.
And they don’t go after the big sites but smaller ones. So my guess here is that they think that the small does cant afford the best lawyers in the US and are easier to catch.
So if I were an affiliate I would block Texas and Kansas for sure!
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Thanks for the update.
If I recall, the so-called “Online Safety Act” allows the government to block any sites outside the UK that it deems aren’t following their laws.
This is where the slippery slope starts, because people will be using VPN services to bypass all of this, and so the same governments will then criminalise the use of VPN.
It could even be suggested that they’ll be eager to use the “protect the children” excuse to criminalise VPN use just because it’s seen massive adoption over the last ten years and it’s greatly reduced the amount of data gathered in dragnet monitoring programs.
They’re going after end-to-end encryption right now also, while using the same excuses.
The EU Commission started a probe under DSA AVS regulation today into Pornhub, xvideos, XNXX, Stripchat. Although stripchat did fall out from being considered a VLOP, they wont need to comply with DSA regulation anymore in 4 months, so the probe is more retrospective.
But that not the interesting thing,
What is is this:
“In addition to the Commission procedure, the Member States are to take coordinated action against smaller pornographic platforms. These fall under the supervision of the respective national Digital Services Coordinators (DSC) and should also be checked for DSA compliance.”
“As a technical solution, the Commission is developing a “white label” age verification app together with the member states, which should be available as early as summer 2025. The application is based on the same technology as the EU Digital Wallet planned for the end of 2026 and is intended to enable age verification in compliance with data protection regulations without disclosing further identity information.”
Affiliates might not fall under the DSA regulation. As long as its a static content site. This means no logins, no comments, no user uploads, and basically zero interaction from the user possible.
Let me add, you have till 10. June to give feedback on the planned guidelines:
Guideline Proposal (as PDF):
https://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/dae/redirection/document/115476
Feedback:
Thanks for sharing.
Interesting, they say “micro and small enterprises will be exempt”.
Here’s the thing, if any of this had been competently planned, there would already have been free systems in place to allow for age verification BEFORE passing sweeping laws that restrict the rights and freedoms of adults.
No one is complaining about the concept of stopping minors from accessing adult entertainment. Of course, it’s morally right to prevent them from accessing adult entertainment (even if it should be the responsibility of parents). But just from a purely business perspective, it doesn’t serve us at all to have minors visiting our sites. We are seeking paying customers, not oglers who don’t have the ability to purchase or the intent to buy anything.
In order to achieve what they think they’re achieving (they’re not, because VPN’s are a thing and other nations aren’t complying with the laws of the US, UK or EU), there needs to be the function to achieve it.
What they’ve done is akin to proclaiming that all other roads are closing, and from a set date everyone has to use a single road, but they haven’t even planned the route that road is going to take, let alone started constructing it.
I will gladly lock all my sites down and only allow proven adults to enter, if they would just spend half an hour contemplating how we are supposed to achieve what they are demanding.
It’s so insanely incompetent.
yeah max 10 employees, under 2 million euro turnover or 50 employees and 10 million turnover.
BUT, that’s just for the DSA and it’s also a bit unclear if a normal porn paysite can be even considered as an online platform as described by the DSA regulation.
A normal porn paysite doesn’t allow public user upload, comment, review or any other user interaction.
But in total the pressure from the US, UK, EU and single member states there is the question if any normal porn site wants to get into the potential legal battle. For the US nearly everyone will say no due to the extreme costs. For the EU/Uk maybe but if you already have AV in place for the US, why bother and not implement the EU solution and avoid legal issues.
The only good about the EU solution is that its one clear solution, privacy-oriented, there the site only gets a yes/no on if the customer is 18+.
And as the app planned will be open source and valid for the whole EU market, that’s definitely better than the US approach.
Given that the biggest markets are the US and the EU/UK, and that a porn site can easily see if there is a shift in customers per country, one could be still be held liable. Its not like you can’t block VPNs, we do actually.
Additionally here an update to the Kansas lawsuit case:
It seems that the majority of pay sites accepting membership payments have integrated some form of age verification into their process. Whether it’s through offering PG-rated tours or requiring users to verify their age before accessing X-rated content, they are clearly taking steps to confirm user age prior to displaying adult material.
That said, there seems to be very little discussion around affiliates who do not charge for access and rely solely on revenue from affiliate-sponsored ad placements. I’ve looked into some of the major competing affiliates inside and outside of the US - without naming names - and they are still displaying explicit content. I’m located in a state where that should not be visible.
In my day-to-day operations, I use a VPN just to check on sponsors and view new content, as those sites block access from restricted states, as they should. However, many affiliate competitors are not implementing the same measures. Is there something I’m missing here? It seems that a number of the top affiliates are not blocking access to a significant portion of the United States. Does that mean I might not need to be either?
What’s especially confusing is that some of these affiliates are part of larger sponsor programs, and while the sponsor sites themselves are age-gated, the affiliate sites promoting them are not - which seems inconsistent.
Kevin
There’s just not viable solution for free sites so that’s why none one is doing it on affiliate sites.
Most probably just are waiting to see what happens. The first cases that will go to court are most likely going to be larger portals like PornHub or Xhamster.
Thanks for the reply, but I think my point may have been misunderstood. I completely agree that age verification systems can be costly and aren’t a viable solution for most free sites. However, blocking access to certain states/countries is a separate issue, and that’s something affiliates could be doing, even if they can’t implement full age verification.
There’s already at least one case in Kansas involving a smaller site, so it’s not just the major platforms like Pornhub or XHamster being targeted. Despite that, the majority of larger affiliate sites I’m aware of are still not blocking access to states that have enacted age verification requirements.
I’ve implemented blocking for those states on my own affiliate site, which is why I’m wondering if I’ve misunderstood something. If the bigger affiliates aren’t restricting access, is there a reason I shouldn’t be either? Or am I just being overly cautious?