Aylo, the parent company of major adult platforms including Pornhub, YouPorn, and Redtube, has announced it will suspend access to its sites in France as of June 4, citing the country’s regulatory approach to online age verification as ineffective and dangerous.

In a statement released today by Alex Kekesi, Vice President of Brand and Community at Aylo, the company criticized the French government’s insistence on site-based age verification, arguing it fails to protect children and instead jeopardizes the privacy of adult users.

“French citizens deserve a government and a regulator who are serious about preventing children from accessing adult content,” the statement read. “They also deserve laws which protect their privacy and safeguard their sensitive data.”

Aylo’s move follows years of attempts to engage with the French government on age verification policy, including offering data, consultations, and pilot participation. The company claims those efforts have yielded little meaningful progress.

The company proposes device-based age verification, requiring Apple, Google, and Microsoft to enforce age checks at the operating system level as a more secure and effective solution. It accuses the French government of ignoring this simpler alternative in favor of “futile and symbolic” measures.

“Site-based age verification does not work,” Kekesi said. “It does not protect children, and it exposes the data of millions of French people to privacy breaches and hacks.”

The ban means that, starting June 4, millions of French users will no longer be able to access some of the most visited adult websites globally—platforms Aylo asserts are among the most thoroughly moderated and compliant in the industry.

Aylo warns that such restrictions do not eliminate access to pornography, but instead drive users toward unregulated, potentially harmful sites with little oversight or user protections. The company claims this shift undermines the very goal of safeguarding minors.

“In effect, all data indicates that these laws have just diverted traffic to dangerous websites that have made the conscious decision to act illegally,” the statement continued.

Aylo concludes by calling on French citizens to demand more practical solutions from their government and to push for policies that protect both minors and the digital rights of adults.

This is not the first time France has taken steps to restrict access to adult content without age verification. In recent years, regulators have pursued legal action against platforms that fail to implement age gates, often invoking concerns over youth exposure to online pornography.

However, industry experts and privacy advocates have raised alarms about the potential for data breaches and the erosion of online anonymity.

As the June 4 cutoff approaches, France becomes a focal point in the growing global debate over digital privacy, age verification, and online content regulation.