TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier filed lawsuits against Aylo and Segpay today with the 12th Judicial Circuit Court of Florida for noncompliance with HB3, the state's age verification law.
The first suit was filed against Gethins Limited, Toccata Inc., Segpay Gateway LLC and Segregated Payments Inc., doing business as Segpay, which the suit names as the operator of the Lusty Heroes video game platform.
The second suit was filed against several Aylo subsidiaries, singling out the websites Nutaku.net, SpiceVids.com, Pornhub.com, RedTube.com, Tube8.com and YouPorn.com for alleged noncompliance.
“Florida is committed to being the best place to raise children,” Uthmeier said in a statement. “We passed strong legislation to keep kids from being exposed to harmful and toxic material, and instead of following it, these platforms ignored it. We are taking them to court to make sure they cannot continue bypassing Florida’s common sense safeguards.”
Violations of Florida’s age verification law carry fines of up to $50,000 per violation.
Among other requests, the suits ask the court to require the defendants to comply with the state’s age verification laws and either temporarily or permanently enjoin the companies to prevent future violations of those laws as well as of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.
In August, Uthmeier filed a similar suit against several European adult websites for noncompliance.
Adult industry attorney Corey D. Silverstein, representing Segpay, told XBIZ that Segpay has yet to be served with any formal complaint and maintains a policy of not commenting on pending or threatened litigation.
Aylo has not yet responded to a request for comment. XBIZ will update this story as more information becomes available.