SALT LAKE CITY — A federal judge has sided with the owner of Pornhub and blocked Utah from enforcing its tough new age-verification law from being enforced.
In a ruling issued Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge David Barlow granted Aylo Freesites' request for a preliminary injunction. Aylo had argued that the law passed by the Utah State Legislature would require age-verification for adult content sites for people Utah — but then targeted VPNs, which can make it appear someone is outside the state or in another country.
The adult content company said in arguments in July that it feared civil and criminal liability and infringes upon the rights of people outside Utah and around the world.
"Utah responds that the statute demands not perfection but reasonable efforts to determine whether a user is actually located in Utah. After full consideration of each party’s briefing and oral argument, the court finds that Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits, they have shown irreparable harm, and the equities favor an injunction. Thus, Plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction is granted," Judge Barlow wrote in his order.
Judge Barlow said Utah's law is vague and Aylo is correct to be worried.
"If the Legislature intended to include those geolocation requirements in its original passage of the reasonable age verification provision, it did not make that intent manifest in the statutory language. Therefore, the court gives effect to the actual-location provision and its enacting amendment by interpreting the provision as the basis for an entity’s geolocation requirements," he wrote. "In short, Aylo is correct that the statute, as amended, now essentially imposes strict liability for entities like it when it comes to determining the location of its websites’ users."
The ruling means Utah's law will not be enforced while the case proceeds toward trial, which could impact numerous adult-content websites, but Aylo and the state had already agreed to not enforce it pending Judge Barlow making his ruling on the injunction request. Pornhub and similar sites have already blocked Utah IP addresses in a political protest for anti-porn laws the legislature has passed.
A spokesperson for Utah Attorney General Derek Brown did not immediately respond to a text message seeking comment on the ruling Thursday night.
In a statement on Tuesday, Aylo said it was pleased with the court's ruling.
"We remain committed to complying with applicable law while safeguarding user privacy and security," the company said.
"Although Aylo believes that Utah’s age-verification law is not sufficiently protective of users’ privacy, that law is not at issue in this case. To be clear, age verification is a good thing, if done correctly. We firmly believe age verification can make the internet a safer space for everyone, when it is done right. We have long worked with governments around the world to better protect kids online. Age verification legislation in other jurisdictions is failing for a number of reasons, including its inconsistent and ineffective enforcement at scale, leaving hundreds of thousands of platforms with age inappropriate content accessible, most of which do not have content moderation or uploader verification measures."
Read the judge's ruling here: