Indiana Lawsuit: Adult Sites Must Block VPNs to Comply with Age-Verification Law

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita is suing dozens of porn websites, claiming that they are in violation of the state's age-verification law and seeking "injunctive relief, civil penalties, and recovery of costs incurred to investigate and maintain the action." Last year, Indiana Senate Bill 17 mandated that websites featuring "material harmful to minors" must verify that visitors are age 18 or above. Rather than start checking IDs, Aylo—the parent company of Pornhub and an array of other adult websites—responded by blocking access for Indiana residents.

The Requirement to Block VPN Access

Now, Indiana says this is not good enough. To successfully comply, Pornhub and other Aylo platforms (which include Brazzers, Youporn, and Redtube, among others) must also block virtual private networks and other tools that allow internet users to mask their IP addresses, the state suggests. The state argues that because some Indiana residents could use tools to get around location-based blocks, location-based blocks "are insufficient to comply with Indiana's Age Verification Law." In a section of the suit detailing how Aylo allegedly violated the age-check law, Indiana notes that "an investigator employed by the Office of the Indiana Attorney General ('OAG Investigator') accessed Pornhub.com from Indiana using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) with a Chicago, Illinois IP address."

Legal Challenges and Anti-Privacy Logic

The Rokita lawsuit accuses Aylo and its affiliate companies of violating not just the Indiana age-verification law but also its Deceptive Consumer Sales Act. The suit claims: "Defendants' misrepresentations regarding the extent to which Indiana residents, including Indiana minors, could continue to access adult oriented websites after passage of Indiana's Age Verification Law were unfair, abusive, and deceptive." David Greene of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) called this "quite ridiculous," stating that "it essentially bases liability on the failure to accomplish impossibilities."

Impact on Digital Privacy

This is an insane—and frighteningly dystopian—interpretation of the law. Indiana's logic could be used to justify sanctioning all sorts of apps and services for failing to block VPNs and other anonymity-aiding tools. Sure, you might prevent a few more teens from seeing boobs or watching TikTok videos, but at the cost of massively impeding privacy for people of all ages. VPNs are also used by people whose employers require them in order to access work email and websites, college students and faculty who may need them to access school websites, and others.

Mobile Usage Metrics and Demographics

Pornhub has released detailed metrics on how users consume porn on their smartphones and tablets. Key data regarding mobile consumption:

  • Traffic Share: IPhone and iPad users account for 32% of all Pornhub traffic, while 31% of traffic comes from Android users.
  • Desktop vs Mobile: Porn aficionados who access Pornhub from their desktop or laptop account for less than 40% of the site’s traffic.
  • Average Time Spent: The average time spent per visit is 10 minutes and 8 seconds on Android devices, while iOS visits are just 8 minutes and 40 seconds.
  • Viewer Demographics: Almost 26% of all mobile traffic comes from female viewers.
  • Age Distribution: More than 36% of all mobile users are ages 18 to 24, while users over the age of 65 account for just over 2% of the site’s traffic.