Ken Paxton sues Pornhub's parent company for $1.6M over age verification

Texas attorney general Ken Paxton has sued the parent company of the website Pornhub for allegedly not following the state's age verification laws.

Paxton has filed suit against Aylo Global Entertainment, who own several pornographic websites, claiming they are in violation of House Bill 1181.

The law, which was slated to take effect in Sept. 2023, requires commercial entities that show sexual material to "use reasonable age verification methods […] to verify that an individual attempting to access the material is 18 years of age or older."

Companies that do not comply could be fined up to $10,000 per day, $10,000 more per day if the company illegally retains identifying information and $250,000 if a child views pornographic content without proper verification.

The bill was sponsored by Paxton's wife, State Senator Angela Paxton.

The attorney general claims Aylo's websites immediately show pornographic material or ask visitors to "complete the trivial step of clicking an ‘enter’ button" which is often presented while sexual material is still visible.

"The age verification methods used by the Defendants on their websites cannot be said to verify anything at all, and wholly fail to comply with the requirement," the lawsuit reads.

According to the lawsuit, Aylo Global Entertainment is on the hook for $1.6 million in fines.

Several pornography websites filed suit against the State of Texas in order to prevent the law from going into effect.

The law was originally blocked in district court this August, but the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals stayed the court's ruling in November 2023, allowing it to go into effect pending Paxton's appeal.