In realms of adult entertainment, there is no doubt that Aylo is world's largest provider of online pornography.

Based on Canada, the company's corporate structure is divided among entities domiciled in a number of other countries, and that it operates a number of video sharing websites, including platforms such as Pornhub, RedTube, and YouPorn, and pornographic film studios such as Brazzers, Digital Playground, Men.com, Reality Kings, Sean Cody, and WhyNotBi.com, among others.

Boasting a vast library of explicit material catering to various tastes and preferences. From videos to photos, and even some interactive features, it's a virtual playground for those seeking some 'visual stimulation', Aylo conducts business in the adult industry that reaches even the furthest corners of the web,

While many of its websites, namely Pornhub, which is its largest, have implemented measures like Age Verification and content moderation to ensure a safer browsing experience, moderations don't do any good, because it's very easy for anyone to see the explicit material, as long as they can access the website.

The U.S. state of Texas, has taken a bold step towards limiting its reach, which is through age verification.

The law in question in Texas, is known as HB 1181.

It requires adult websites to implement “reasonable age verification” methods to ensure that pornography is not being distributed to minors. Those methods include either requiring users to submit “proof of identity” such as a government-issued ID to the adult website or to a third-party contractor, or by submitting other personal data to a third-party contractor, such as biometric information, that enables the vendor to check a user’s age.

It all began when the state of Texas sued Aylo (PDF), previously known as MindGeek, alleging it violated its age verification law, which requires visitors to porn sites to show government-issued identification or other data to confirm they are 18 or older.

Having taken effect in 2023, the law was challenged in federal court by an adult industry trade association before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the injunction in November, allowing Texas to enforce it.

It subjects porn websites, like Pornhub, to fines of up to $10,000 per day for failing to verify users’ ages.

Texas’ lawsuit claims Aylo has been in violation for 160 days and so must pay up to $1.6 million, as well as up to $10,000 for each additional day after the filing date.

"Aylo has publicly supported age verification of users for years, but we believe that any law to this effect must ensure minors do not access content intended for adults and preserve user safety and privacy," Alex Kekesi, Aylo's vice president of brand and community, said in an email statement.

Kekesi suggested the "real solution" to an age verification mandate is to impose a device-based verification system, which would have users input their age information directly into their phone’s operating systems.

Aylo is reviewing its options and consulting with its legal team, Kekesi said.

Following this, all websites under Aylo, which include Pornhub, Brazzers, RedTube, YouPorn, Xtube, Digital Playground, Men.com, Mofos, Nutaku, Reality Kings, Sean Cody, Twistys and WhyNotBi.com, have also removed access to their content in Texas.

When visitors using a Texas IP address try to visit any of Aylo's websites, instead of seeing the websites' home page, they will see a statement explaining its reasoning and encouraging users to contact their representatives about the law.

The statement reads:

In its website statement, Pornhub claimed that asking users to provide ID every time they access porn sites will "put minors and your privacy at risk."

The government will be able to know who access porn websites, and their preferences, for example.

It also said that the law will drive viewers away from sites that do comply with the law but funnel them toward those that don’t.

Texas is the latest in a string of states — including Montana, North Carolina, Louisiana, Utah, Arkansas, Mississippi and Virginia — where Aylo has restricted access to its porn sites in response to age-verification laws.

"Sites like Pornhub are on the run because Texas has a law that aims to prevent them from showing harmful, obscene material to children," said Attorney General Ken Paxton said in an email statement.

"We recently secured a major victory against PornHub and other sites that sought to block this law from taking effect. In Texas, companies cannot get away with showing porn to children. If they don’t want to comply, good riddance."

Then, the inevitable happens.

As people from Texas started realizing that they cannot access Pornhub and other popular porn websites, searches for virtual private networking (VPN) spiked.

The four-fold rise in Google Search searches for tools that can circumvent the state-level blocking suggests the law may already be having unintended side effects.

Advocates said age verification laws are "unconstitutional," and that they're also "silly and ineffective."

Just like people in countries like China or Russia, many of them have successfully evade government censorship using simple tools like VPNs.