The parent company of Pornhub, Aylo Holdings, is set to pay $1.8 million to the U.S. government to settle charges related to profiting from sex trafficking.
Formerly known as MindGeek, the company has agreed to a deferred prosecution arrangement, involving the appointment of a monitor to supervise Aylo and its compliance efforts over the next three years.
Aylo and its adult content sites have faced criticism for a history of negligence in moderating third-party uploads of explicit content.
The investigation by the Eastern District of New York’s Attorney’s Office specifically focuses on GirlsDoPorn, a network that has been sharing videos on Pornhub and other Aylo platforms since 2009.
In 2019, a federal grand jury in the Southern District of California indicted GDP for sex trafficking and other charges. However, according to court documents filed by Aylo this week, the company knowingly profited from GDP’s content.
Authorities emphasized in a press release that Aylo was aware or should have been aware that it hosted videos featuring women who were unaware they were being filmed or did not consent to the widespread sharing of these videos.
The release also highlighted that numerous complaints were submitted to Aylo between 2016 and 2019 by women who asserted that the videos were posted without their consent.
Aylo, recently rebranded, has undergone a tumultuous period, including its sale to a new private equity firm named Ethical Capital Partners.
Prior to this, both the CEO and COO of MindGeek, the company’s previous identity, had departed.
