Florida AG sues porn sites for violating age verification law

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Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier’s office has filed two complaints against porn sites accused of openly violating Florida’s age verification law.

The law requires pornographic websites to verify users’ ages before granting access. It says a company profiting from pornographic material must keep minors out. 

“Florida is committed to being the best place to raise children,” Uthmeier said. “We passed strong legislation to keep kids from being exposed to harmful and toxic material, and instead of following it, these platforms ignored it.

“We are taking them to court to make sure they cannot continue bypassing Florida’s common sense safeguards.”

The AG’s filed a complaint against Gethins Limited, Toccata, Inc., Segpay Gateway LLC, Segregated Payments, Inc. and D/B/A Segpay. A second complaint was filed against Aylo Holdings USA Corp., Aylo Billings US Corp., Aylo Group Ltd and Nutaku Entertainment Ltd. Both complaints claim the defendants failed to implement the safeguards required to verify users’ ages before granting access to pornographic material. 

The complaint says the defendants of the first lawsuit not only distribute pornographic video game content on its website, but it does not have any age verification process compliant with Florida law to prevent children from accessing its content. 

The second complaint says those defendants operate a variety of websites with pornographic and sexually explicit material that is harmful to minors without any age verification process compliant with Florida law to prevent children from accessing its content.

The complaints state that each day these websites run unchecked and continue to violate Florida’s age verification law, they rack up numerous violations and continue to build a vast and lucrative Florida user base that includes children and teens.

Violations of Florida’s age-verification law carry penalties of up to $50,000 fine per violation. The complaints ask the court to enter judgment against the defendants, temporarily and permanently enjoin them to prevent future violations, require defendants comply with Florida’s Age Verification laws and award civil penalties as well as attorney fees, court costs and other relief.

Uthmeier is taking legal action against multiple online pornography websites acting in violation of Florida law by not requiring age verification before accessing adult content. Last year, Florida enacted HB 3, requiring commercial entities that distribute sexually explicit material online that is harmful to minors to verify that individuals attempting to access the material are at least 18 years of age. 

Despite knowing the websites must comply with age-verification laws, several companies have openly defied HB 3 since it took effect Jan. 1, the AG’s office says.