4 Porn Sites Sued for Violating Kansas Age-Verification Laws
Four porn sites were sued Monday for allegedly failing to implement age verification on their websites as Kansas law requires, announced the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) Law Center, co-counsel for the suits. Filed on behalf of a 14-year-old minor in the U.S. District Court for Kansas, the suits are the first in the U.S. that challenge violations of age-verification laws, NCOSE said.
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“Kansas law requires pornography companies to implement reasonable age verification methods, and the companies named in these lawsuits failed to do so," said Dani Pinter, senior vice president and director of the Law Center at NCOSE, in a press release.
One complaint, against pornography website hentaicity.com and its owner, Titan Websites, alleges that a 14-year-old minor from Kansas used his mother’s laptop to access the porn site a dozen times. The suit alleges hentaicity.com used algorithms and content curation, among other tools, to target the minor "based on his personal data and search history," and curated "specific content for him based on these metrics.” That drove the teen to the site, "where he was delivered specific content tailored to him” without having to verify his age.
The charges in the complaint include violations of Kansas law requiring age verification, the Kansas Consumer Protection Act and negligence. “Instead, minors who visit the website are immediately presented with sexual material harmful to minors with no form of verification needed.”
The other lawsuits filed are against Multi Media, which operates website Chaturbate.com; ICF Technology Inc., host of Jerkmate.com; and Techpump Solutions, operator of Superporn.com.