Pornhub Owner Agrees to $5 Million Settlement with FTC for Insufficient Protections Against Abusive Content

Aylo, the proprietor of Pornhub, has consented to a $5 million settlement with the FTC and Utah following accusations of profiting from child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and nonconsensual material (NCM).

Formerly known as Mindgeek, Aylo made significant improvements to its content moderation practices in late 2020 after an exposé by The New York Times. This report underscored Pornhub’s inadequate efforts to effectively prevent and eliminate CSAM and NCM from its platform. The pressure from credit card companies eventually led the organization to begin verifying the ages of all performers and to demand documentation of their consent for video uploads.

Nevertheless, the FTC and Utah assert that despite these initiatives, Aylo continued hosting illegal content and mishandling consumer data.

The FTC alleges that Aylo did not inform that after performers verified their identities through a third-party vendor, the company retained this data indefinitely. This information, purportedly inadequately protected, may feature sensitive details such as Social Security numbers, addresses, birthdates, and typical government ID information.

“Aylo assured its models that their personal information would be secure, yet failed to implement standard security measures,” stated the FTC in a press release. “For example, Aylo did not encrypt the personal data it retained, did not limit access to this information, and neglected to store it behind a firewall.”

Furthermore, the FTC contends that Aylo did not honor its pledge to ban users who attempted to upload CSAM. Per the complaint, the company merely restricted these users from creating new accounts using the same username or email.

Aylo also committed to using “fingerprinting” technology for videos suspected of being CSAM, with the aim of flagging any efforts to upload such material across its various platforms. However, the FTC claims this technology was ineffective from at least 2017 to August 2021, resulting in the reupload of hundreds of CSAM videos.

Aylo has voluntarily reached a settlement, affirming its “commitment to preventing the publication of CSAM and NCM,” as stated in a release shared with TechCrunch.

As part of the settlement, Aylo is required to verify the consent and identities of all individuals appearing in uploaded photos or videos. The organization must also institute policies, procedures, and technical measures designed to block the publication of CSAM and NCM, as well as remove previously posted content before activating the new system.

“The resolution reached included enhancements to existing measures but did not impose any new substantive requirements that were not already in place or underway,” Aylo noted.

For the next decade, Aylo will be subject to independent third-party audits to ensure adherence to the settlement’s stipulations.