Montana Blocked by Pornhub Due to Age Verification Law

HELENA, Mont.—Aylo, the parent company of adult tube site Pornhub, has confirmed to AVN that the U.S. state of Montana was geo-blocked due to a copycat age verification law entering into force on January 1, 2024. Montana is the latest state to be blocked by the porn industry giant that was formerly known as MindGeek.  Senate Bill (SB) 544 was introduced by state Sen. Willis Curdy, D-Missoula, and adopted by the state legislature, which is dominated by Republicans. SB 544 requires porn sites to verify a user's age before viewing age-restricted materials. The law is similar to an age verification proposal first introduced and implemented by the state of Louisiana on January 1, 2023. The law calls for “reasonable age verification methods” defined as “any commercially reasonable method that relies on public or private transactional data to verify the age of the person attempting to access the information is at least 18 years of age or older.” North Carolina was also just geo-blocked for a similar law entering force there on January 1. Utah, Mississippi, Virginia and a number of other states have been geo-blocked by Aylo.