Looks like no Pornhub for you Germany.

Two of the world’s most visited adult websites, Pornhub and YouPorn, will remain blocked in Germany after the Berlin Administrative Court upheld a government-mandated “network ban” over their failure to implement legally approved age verification systems.

The decision affirms actions taken by Germany’s media regulator, the State Media Authority of North Rhine-Westphalia (LfM), which began pursuing enforcement against adult platforms in 2020 under the Jugendmedienschutz-Staatsvertrag (JMStV) — Germany’s Interstate Treaty on the Protection of Minors in the Media.

The operators of Pornhub and YouPorn, both owned by Cyprus-based Aylo (formerly MindGeek), had challenged the enforcement actions by arguing that being based in another European Union country exempts them from Germany’s child protection laws. However, the court rejected that argument, stating the Media Authority’s orders do not violate national, European, or international law.

The ruling signals a broader acceptance of territorial enforcement within the EU, bolstering the view that national regulators can act against foreign companies if their services are accessible to citizens and fail to meet local legal obligations, such as strict age verification.

Under German law, adult content sites must verify user age through government-approved mechanisms, such as:

• Digital ID checks
• Video-based facial recognition
• Integration with credit or identity databases (e.g., Schufa)

Tools like Verifym, approved by both the Kommission für Jugendmedienschutz (KJM) and the FSM (Association for Voluntary Self-Regulation), are accepted solutions.

The ruling reinforces that any adult platform operating in Germany without such a system can legally be blocked at the network level by internet service providers, including Telekom, Vodafone, Telefónica, and 1&1, all of whom have been instructed to enforce access blocks.

Germany’s decision adds momentum to broader European age verification enforcement efforts:

• France’s ARCOM and the UK’s ICO are pushing similar policies.
• The EU Commission is now discussing a cross-border digital age verification framework, possibly incorporating digital wallets for uniform implementation under the Digital Services Act (DSA).

Vodafone has challenged the German blocks in a separate case in Düsseldorf, arguing that the DSA supersedes national rules. The EU Commission supports this view, stating that a coordinated EU-wide approach offers better protection than fragmented national regulations.

Despite past enforcement actions, platforms like Pornhub have reportedly circumvented previous bans by simply changing domain names, a workaround the court’s ruling does not directly address.

Nonetheless, the decision represents one of the harshest digital sanctions under the German Telemedia Act, often criticized as censorship but increasingly viewed by lawmakers as necessary to protect minors online.

The ruling may still be appealed to the Higher Administrative Court of Berlin-Brandenburg, and broader legal questions may ultimately be resolved at the EU level. But for now, German regulators are empowered to continue blocking non-compliant adult sites and are urging platforms to implement approved age verification systems immediately to avoid losing access to the German market.

Industry observers note that it is far easier to lose access than regain it, with blocked sites likely to see major drops in traffic, revenue, and search rankings while fighting to comply.

It seems age verification is no longer optional. It’s rapidly becoming a cost of doing business in the European Union.