Canadian firm Ethical Capital buys Pornhub parent MindGeek

Pornhub is one of the most well known websites for accessing adult content online with as many as 80,000 visitors every minute as of 2019. It also saw a 12 per cent surge in visits during the pandemic, with more people watching the site than Netflix which is streaming a documentary about it. Following years of criticism over hosting child porn, rape videos, and revenge porn, Pornhub's parent firm MindGeek has been bought by a Canadian firm.

Serious allegations

• The equity investor Ethical Capital Partners, has acquired the porn site two years after Mastercard and Visa stopped processing payments for it.

• A New York Times op-ed slamming Pornhub for profiting from child sexual abuse and videos shared without consent, was welcomed by anti-porn critics.

• India had also been named as a rapidly growing market for Pornhub with a 95% surge among visitors in 2020, with majority of viewers being men aged between 25 and 34.

What does the future hold for Pornhub?

• ECP seeks to help the business evolve with regulatory experience and expertise in legal matters as well as finance and public engagement.

• MindGeek currently faces several lawsuits over its content, and settled one in California in 2021, after it was accused of victimising 50 women.

• The Montreal-founded firm now based out of Luxembourg has also introduced measures including user verification, to curb the flow of illegal content.