PARIS — France has experienced a surge in virtual private network (VPN) signups after Aylo, which operates Pornhub, Redtube and YouPorn, cut off access to those sites in the country in the wake of new age verification regulations, business news site MENAFN is reporting.
According to MENAFN, ProtonVPN reported a 1,000% rise in sign-up requests within 30 minutes of Aylo's decision to restrict access to its sites, while NordVPN reported a 170% jump in usage.
France is Pornhub's second-largest market after the U.S., and earlier this month, overall VPN demand in France jumped 334% compared to the previous month, per Top10VPN.
Similar spikes in VPN use occurred in Utah, Texas and Florida when Aylo blocked access to Pornhub in those U.S. states after each passed similar AV legislation. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected soon to hand down a ruling in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, the adult industry trade association's challenge to the Texas law; that decision could significantly impact age verification laws around the United States.
Adult platforms operating in France had until June 7 to comply with the country's new AV rules under the Security and Regulation of the Digital Space (SREN) law. Proponents of SREN insist it will protect children from "violent, degrading and humiliating" material. Critics argue that the SREN rules undermine online privacy, put digital freedoms at risk and are not effective in protecting minors from accessing sexually explicit content.
The common use of VPNs to circumvent such laws is frequently cited as one example of such ineffectiveness.
In a statement, Aylo called it a "difficult decision" to suspend access. Users in France who visit Aylo's user-uploaded platforms are now met with a message similar to that encountered by U.S. users in numerous states where Pornhub has blocked access due to age verification laws.
News site France 24 quotes Solomon Friedman of Ethical Capital Partners, which owns Aylo, as telling reporters that displaying the message — which will include an image of French artist Eugène Delacroix’s iconic painting “Liberty Leading the People” — is Aylo’s way of telling the French people “how dangerous, how potentially privacy-infringing, and how ineffective the French law is.”
While France's new policy mandates that third-party software verify user age without collecting personal data, Aylo has raised doubts about the reliability and privacy of such software, calling for the kinds of device-level age controls that the world's major tech companies can now implement.
Besides VPNs, some users have also employed proxy servers to mask their IP addresses, though proxy servers do not offer the same privacy as a VPN, which also encrypts user data.