Today, a German court has ruled against Mindgeek, saying that they must observe German age-verification laws despite being located in another country. Germany will now proceed to ban access to Mindgeek sites like Pornhub, YouPorn, RedTube, etc.

Previously, Mindgeek had argued that because it was based in Cyprus, German law did not apply. The courts disagreed.

Is this the beginning of a ban on all adult sites in Germany?

This is a Google-translated version of the story.

Porn portals based in other European countries can also be regulated by German youth protection agencies. The Higher Administrative Court (OVG) in Münster has dismissed complaints from two porn portals from Cyprus against a ban on the distribution of pornographic internet offers in Germany. According to a statement on Thursday, the court thus confirmed the decisions of the Düsseldorf Administrative Court in an urgent procedure.

This had agreed with the State Media Authority of North Rhine-Westphalia, which had complained about the protection of children and young people from a total of three Internet offerings in Cypriot societies: Pornhub, YouPorn, and Mydirtyhobby.

The media regulators banned their further distribution in Germany as long as the pornographic content was not removed or it was ensured that only adults had access to it.

Controversy has been going on for years

The creators of several large porn portals, most of which are based in Cyprus, have been refusing for years to put a youth protection system in front of their offers that meets the requirements of the Commission for Youth Media Protection. The media regulators want to oblige the porn providers to put an effective age verification in front of their offers. Some of the largest offers only rely on warnings that can be easily clicked away if no youth protection program is installed on the computer or smartphone.

As justification for the decision, the Higher Administrative Court stated that there were no constitutional objections to the fact that the content-related decision on compatibility with youth protection in the supervision of telemedia offerings was assigned solely to the transnational Commission for Youth Media Protection (KJM).

In view of the high priority given to the protection of minors, the providers could not counter the ban with the so-called country of origin principle, according to which Internet providers from an EU member state are only subject to the rules there. The Higher Administrative Court decisions are incontestable, but the providers had tried separate main proceedings.

If the portals continue to refuse to install a youth protection system, the authorities could block them from German access providers. The state media authority of North Rhine-Westphalia had already imposed such a block on the xHamster portal, but it had little effect: the provider activated another domain without further ado in order to bypass the block from German providers.

Movement after years of standstill

According to information from SPIEGEL, however, there is now a new movement in the legal dispute. The authorities in Cyprus want to regulate the protection of minors themselves in the future, which would call into question the responsibility of the German authorities. At the same time, a representative of the xHamster portal met with representatives of the authorities in North Rhine-Westphalia in July. Before that, the authorities did not even get an answer to official letters to the official company headquarters.