Listen to this articleMindGeek — owner of a number of grownup leisure websites, together with Pornhub, Brazzers and Redtube — was acquired by a Canadian non-public fairness agency, Ethical Capital Partners (ECP).
ECP, which was fashioned last year, didn’t disclose the terms of the deal.
“In MindGeek, we have identified a dynamic tech brand that is built upon a foundation of trust, safety and compliance, and with ECP’s resources and broad expertise spanning regulatory, law enforcement, public engagement and finance, we have a unique opportunity to strengthen what already exists,” said ECP founding associate Fady Mansour in an announcement.
The acquisition follows a rocky few years for the porn giant. MindGeek’s CEO Feras Antoon and COO David Tassillo each departed from the corporate in June 2022. MindGeek also is presently in the midst of a number of lawsuits that allege it has knowingly profited off of kid sexual abuse materials (CSAM). As of December 2020, the platform eliminated all non-verified content and now requires anybody who seems in a user-uploaded video to confirm their id. Platforms like OnlyFans uphold comparable insurance policies as a way of cracking down on nonconsensual content.
In its announcement, ECP refers to MindGeek as “the internet leader in fighting illegal online content.” The non-public fairness agency lists a number of insurance policies in MindGeek’s belief and security program, together with its moderation practices, which require human moderators to manually assessment all uploads.
MindGeek, and the net porn trade at giant, faces vital danger from U.S. laws like SESTA/FOSTA. The laws carves out an exception to Section 230 that holds on-line platforms answerable for facilitating prostitution and trafficking, so bank card processors have grow to be skittish about operating afoul of the legislation. Now cost and bank card firms like PayPal, Mastercard, Visa and Discover now not course of funds on websites like Pornhub.
Pornhub owner MindGeek bought to non-public fairness agency by Amanda Silberling initially printed on TechCrunch
