BERLIN — Starting Dec. 1, Germany will implement new rules prohibiting financial institutions from providing payment services to adult sites deemed to have inadequate age verification systems, and making it easier for the government to target websites mirroring the content of such sites.
As XBIZ reported in late 2024, the heads of government of the German federal states agreed on the new measures in proposed amendments to Germany’s Interstate Treaty on the Protection of Human Dignity and Minors in Broadcasting and Telemedia (JMStV). Those amendments were later officially approved by the heads of government and ratified by the German state parliaments.
German tech news site NetzPolitik reports that a formal administrative procedure will be carried out in cases where media regulators seek to cut off funding to adult sites, giving payment service providers an opportunity to comment before the Commission for the Protection of Minors in the Media (KJM) renders a decision on blocking payments for specific sites.
Government media regulators will also be able to institute “network bans” against “mirror” sites more expeditiously than before. Blocked sites like xHamster, Pornhub and YouPorn have previously used mirror sites as a workaround, circumventing network bans by altering their domains.
Germany has been ratcheting up efforts to enforce AV requirements in the wake of a campaign by the State Media Authority of North Rhine-Westphalia, which has targeted adult sites as part of a crusade to enforce JMStV provisions requiring that pornographic sites accessible in Germany meticulously verify visitors’ ages via methods such as ID or biometric facial scans. Last month, a German high court upheld a “network ban” on Aylo-owned adult sites Pornhub and YouPorn for compliance failures.