French Court Orders Block of Adult Sites

PARIS — The Paris Court of Appeal has ordered that four adult sites be blocked in France if they don’t comply with age verification requirements within 15 days.

According to a report, the sites, all of which are based outside the EU, are TuKif, xHamster, MrSexe and IciPorno.

The order states that “the best interests of the child should be a primary consideration that could justify infringing other rights such as freedom of expression or communication and that prioritizing the protection of the privacy of adult consumers, by excluding an age check, was incompatible with the right of minors to be protected from unlimited, anonymous and free access to content that is inappropriate for their age.”

Once the sites are blocked, they are mandated to implement rigorous age verification, or the measure will stay in effect “until it is demonstrated that they have implemented a control other than purely declarative control of the fact that users are adults.”

The court’s decision comes in the wake of French regulator ARCOM publishing its technical reference guide for the implementation of age verification.