The European Commission has issued preliminary charges against four large adult websites, asserting they allowed minors to access pornographic material and did not comply with the bloc's Digital Services Act, regulators announced on Thursday.
Following a 10-month investigation under the Digital Services Act - the EU's law that tightens obligations on large online platforms to address illegal and harmful content - the Commission found that Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX and XVideos failed to implement sufficiently robust safeguards to keep children off their services.
EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen underscored the concern about age of exposure, saying in a statement:
"Children are accessing adult content at increasingly younger ages and these platforms must put in place robust, privacy-preserving and effective measures to keep minors off their services."
In its preliminary findings, the Commission criticised the companies for not employing objective and thorough methodologies to assess the risk to children accessing their sites. It said the platforms appeared to prioritise reputational concerns over the societal risks posed to minors.
The regulator named the companies and their ownership where available: Pornhub is owned by Cypriot group Aylo Freesites, Stripchat is a subsidiary of Cyprus's Technius, XNXX is owned by Czech group NKL Associates, and XVideos is operated by WebGroup Czech Republic.
The Commission highlighted the reliance by these services on a self-declaration tool that permits access after a single click confirming the user is over 18. It judged that such a mechanism, along with measures like page blurring and content-warning banners, does not effectively prevent children from reaching adult material.
As a result, regulators said the four platforms need to deploy privacy-preserving age verification solutions to better protect minors from harmful content.
If the companies are ultimately found to have breached the Digital Services Act, they face potential fines of as much as 6% of their global annual turnover.
Aylo, the owner of Pornhub, issued a response acknowledging receipt of the Commission's preliminary conclusions and said it was reviewing them. The company emphasised that these are not final findings and that its analysis is ongoing:
"We have received the European Commission’s preliminary findings and are carefully reviewing them. These are preliminary findings, not a final decision, and our detailed analysis is ongoing. We will continue to engage constructively with the Commission as we present our position."
Aylo further said it shares the Commission's objective of protecting minors online but cautioned that implementing age verification correctly is complex. The company stated:
"Protecting minors online is a goal we firmly share with the Commission. At the same time, our goal is to get age verification right. Our experience across multiple jurisdictions shows that current website-level age-verification solutions often fail, driving users toward unregulated sites with little or no safety infrastructure, and raising serious data privacy concerns."
Attempts to reach Stripchat for comment went unanswered. The Commission said contact details for the two Czech-owned sites were not available, and no response from those operators was included in the preliminary findings.
Context and implications
The Commission's action is an enforcement step in the Digital Services Act framework and represents a push for more stringent, privacy-conscious age verification across large online platforms hosting adult content. The case highlights regulatory scrutiny over how companies balance user privacy, platform accessibility and the protection of minors.