When the Paris Court of Appeal recently blocked four porn sites in France for not having a proper age verification system, the two online child protection nonprofits that had pushed for the blocks probably thought they’d scored a big victory. However, in one case, it turned out to be a bit of a self-own.
According to l’Informé, the nonprofits targeted Iciporno, Mrsexe, Tukif, and xHamster. Their complaints included the web addresses of the sites — but for xHamster, they used “fr.xhamster.com,” referring to the site’s French subdomain.
As a result, the court ordered the blocking of “fr.xhamster.com” — including the “fr.” prefix. This led internet service providers to comply with the order and block xHamster at the DNS level, but only with the “fr.” prefix.
Therefore, xHamster remains accessible in France until the regulator, Arcom, finds a way to close this embarrassing loophole.
