Aylo Appeals EU Court Ruling Forcing Real Name Disclosure

LUXEMBOURG—Aylo, the parent company of adult tube website Pornhub and ad network TrafficJunky, has appealed a recent decision handed down by a European Union court ordering the platform operator to release the natural names and identification data of its advertisers. The appeal is currently before the Court of Justice of the European Union. The Court of Justice is the highest judicial authority for interpreting legislation adopted by the European Parliament and implemented by the European Commission. This is a crucial detail because the legal matter has to do with Aylo fighting the European Commission's classification of Pornhub as a very large online platform (VLOP) per the Digital Services Act. AVN previously reported that Pornhub, along with other large adult platforms, were classified as VLOPs because the European Commission has determined that Pornhub has more than 45 million monthly visitors from member states. Under the Digital Services Act (DSA), platforms must make data available to regulators and independent entities to determine whether the platform's owner is doing enough to protect user data and privacy rights. Access to this data is also required so that law enforcement agencies can have it. Aylo sued the European Commission in the General Court of the EU. It sought to limit its requirements under the DSA, including the natural name data from advertiser databases, which also would feature the 2257 documentation and other sensitive personally identifiable information of models who appear in various marketing assets. TrafficJunky is the Pornhub Network's marketing tool for affiliates, including the collateral for advertising particular brands, imprints, studios and adult companies. On July 2, the General Court ruled against Aylo and its affiliated companies, indicating that access to this data is justified under the acts of the European Parliament.  "In the light of all those factors, it must be held that the interests defended by the EU legislature prevail, in the present case, over the interests of the applicant (Aylo), of performers and of other natural persons, with the result that the weighing up of interests leans in favour of dismissing the application for interim measures," ordered the General Court's president.  This means that no special treatment or suspension of certain requirements for the DSA's VLOP regulations can be applied in the case of Aylo. "To be clear, we are not against disclosing our ad repository and, in fact, have done so as a result of the judgment rejecting our interim relief application," an Aylo spokesperson told AVN in an email. "Our concern, however, remains with the publication of natural names in the repository, and we have correspondingly appealed this part of the decision." That means anyone from anywhere can search for the names and information of those individuals in the public repository, which is available across Aylo's websites, including TrafficJunky. Now, the appeal is to further test if Aylo can protect data like the personal information of sex workers who are listed in the repository. "Publication of that information would, therefore, seriously and irretrievably harm [our] advertising activities and the confidential advertising strategies of [our] advertising partners," concluded the Aylo spokesperson. Alessandro Polidoro, an independent lawyer who has been critical of Pornhub in the past, isn't convinced of Aylo's arguments for appeal. "Sex workers’ safety is a must, but now it looks like Aylo wants to use this as an excuse to delay the application," Polidoro told EU political news outlet Euractiv. AVN has previously covered Polidoro and his work on holding Aylo and its affiliated companies accountable for violations of EU personal data laws. Aylo maintains that it isn't a VLOP, as its European Union user volume is under 45 million. At the time of this writing, the DSA disclosure published on Pornhub indicates that only 32 million users visit each month.