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The leading media trade publication in Australia.<\/p>\nI confess, I have a rather X-rated late-night habit.<\/p>\n
When sleep evades me, I reach for my phone. Then, bathed in the blue light of that tiny screen, I furiously finger the keyboard, typing in my destination. When the mood strikes, time really is of the essence.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s the browsing. The anticipation. The growing conviction that somewhere, just one more scroll away, is something that will finally satisfy me.<\/p>\n
Eventually, after flicking through page after page of things I probably shouldn\u2019t be looking at, I find myself deep in the annals of, ahem, online late-night shopping.<\/p>\n
Usually vases. Occasionally storage products. Once, a deeply ill-advised ornate mirror.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t look at me like that. Everyone has their own method of release. Mine comes with a tracking number and buyer\u2019s remorse.<\/p>\n
For Australians whose nocturnal browsing takes them somewhere other than the homewares clearance section, however, there\u2019s news: Pornhub is back.<\/p>\n
The leading media trade publication in Australia.<\/p>\n
Get our top stories straight to your inbox daily by signing up to our Newsletter<\/p>\n
The site\u2019s parent company, Aylo, announced on Wednesday it was restoring access in Australia after withdrawing in March over age-verification requirements.<\/p>\n
But this comeback comes with a condition. Only adults with Apple devices who have completed Apple\u2019s age checks can access the site.<\/p>\n
Proof of age before pleasure. Even late-night habits have admin now.<\/p>\n
\nAn Apple a day<\/p>\n
Apple recently introduced age checks in Australia after rolling them out in the UK. Users can confirm they are over 18 using a credit card, passport, driver\u2019s licence or government-issued ID.<\/p>\n
For Aylo, the attraction is where that verification happens: on the device, rather than separately through each website.<\/p>\n
The company has long argued that this approach better protects both children and adults\u2019 privacy. One age check, rather than repeatedly handing over personal information whenever a different site asks.<\/p>\n
Aylo said Apple had \u201cset a benchmark\u201d by making child safety features the default unless device owners confirmed they were adults.<\/p>\n
That makes \u201cevery phone or tablet kid-safe as a starting point,\u201d the company said.<\/p>\n
Aylo\u2019s vice-president of brand and community, Alex Kekesi, said the approach reflected what the company had been advocating.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor years, Aylo has advocated for device-based age verification as the most effective and privacy-protecting approach to help prevent minors from accessing age-inappropriate content online,\u201d Kekesi said.<\/p>\n
Australians using Apple devices that have completed the checks will be \u201cserved a standard adult user experience\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n
A rather corporate way of announcing that normal programming has resumed.<\/p>\n
Why Pornhub pulled out<\/p>\n
Australia introduced stricter age-verification requirements in March for access to adult content, including pornography, R-rated video games and sexually explicit AI chatbots.<\/p>\n
The country\u2019s online safety regulator said the changes would protect children from harmful material, with platforms facing fines for breaches.<\/p>\n
Critics raised concerns about data privacy and users finding ways to fool verification systems, including those relying on facial recognition, digital IDs and credit card details.<\/p>\n
Aylo withdrew Pornhub from the Australian market in response. It argued that the requirements would not protect children and would instead create privacy risks while driving users towards platforms that did not comply.<\/p>\n
Its return follows Apple\u2019s introduction of the device-based checks it favours.<\/p>\n
Kekesi said default child safety features meant adults would not have to \u201csurrender unnecessary personal information to multiple apps and websites\u201d.<\/p>\n
A VPN won\u2019t necessarily do the trick<\/p>\n
Kekesi also said device-based checks limited the usefulness of virtual private networks, or VPNs, for circumventing age restrictions.<\/p>\n
VPNs can make a website believe someone is browsing from another country. Verifying age through the device, she argued, reduces the usefulness of that geographical sleight of hand.<\/p>\n
For now, Pornhub\u2019s Australian comeback has a particular admission policy: adults who have completed Apple\u2019s checks.<\/p>\n
As for me, there\u2019s a floor lamp sitting in a shopping cart that isn\u2019t going to purchase itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I confess, I have a rather X-rated late-night habit. When sleep evades me, I reach for my phone.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":919892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-919891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=919891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/919892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=919891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=919891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=919891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}