DÜSSELDORF, Germany — The Administrative Court of Düsseldorf has temporarily blocked the State Media Authority of North Rhine-Westphalia (LfM) from forcing telecom providers based within the court's jurisdiction to cut off access to Aylo-owned adult sites Pornhub and YouPorn.
As XBIZ reported in July, a different court upheld the same “network ban” as it applied to ISPs within its purview. The ban would have required Telekom and Vodafone to block the Aylo sites for failing to comply with German age verification regulations requiring meticulous verification of visitors’ ages via methods such as ID or biometric facial scans.
On Nov. 19, however, the Administrative Court of Düsseldorf ruled that the LfM cannot require Telekom and Vodafone to block the adult sites until the Higher Administrative Court for the State of North Rhine-Westphalia reaches a decision on the pending appeals of the original prohibition orders against the sites.
The court’s statement notes that, according to recent case law of the European Court of Justice, the provisions of Germany’s Youth Media Protection Interstate Treaty (JMStV), which underlie the blocking orders, now appear to violate the overriding law of the European Union. According to this case law, the statement explains, the free flow of digital services between member states — Aylo is legally based in Cyprus — may not be restricted unless certain conditions are met, and the German rules may no longer meet those conditions.
Jurisdictional Confusion
Not only are disparate German courts issuing opposing rulings, but the issue of German versus EU law has come to the fore on the issue of protecting minors online, during this past year.
In December 2024, government officials in Luxembourg rebuffed a French government request to help enforce France’s Security and Regulation of the Digital Space (SREN) law by taking action against webcam platform LiveJasmin.
“We cannot circumvent EU rules just because it is maybe a highly sensitive topic,” a Luxembourg Economy Ministry official told the Luxembourg Times in May.
In July, the European Commission released its final, approved guidelines for protecting minors online under the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) and made public a “white label” age verification app intended to help sites and platforms comply with age verification rules under the DSA.
Meanwhile, there has been controversy over whether French media regulator Arcom can regulate companies based in other EU member states, and what procedures would have to be followed in such a case. Arcom asked media regulators in the Czech Republic to aid in enforcing its AV rules, but those agencies declined on the grounds that they lack sufficient legal means to enforce the French law in their countries.
That case involves WebGroup Czech Republic, which operates XVideos.com, and NKL Associates, which operates XNXX.com. The two companies appealed to France’s Council of State, contending that French media regulator Arcom does not have the power to compel sites based outside of France to follow French AV regulations, since that would violate the “country of origin” principle in the EU’s Directive on Electronic Commerce.
In September, an advocate general of the European Union’s Court of Justice advised the court, in a nonbinding legal opinion, to rule that France may indeed require pornographic websites based in other EU states to implement age verification in accordance with French law.
As XBIZ has reported, XVideos and XNXX are among several websites that Arcom has called out for failing to implement age verification as required under France’s Security and Regulation of the Digital Space (SREN) law. Should the sites fail to comply, Arcom plans to follow the LfM’s example in Germany and initiate delisting and blocking proceedings against them.
The eventual conclusion of the Pornhub/YouPorn litigation in Germany is likely to be a precedent-setter, as the EU and national courts jointly hammer out which rules will take priority going forward.