Mindgeek, the parent company of the major porn portal Pornhub, has been taken over by the Canadian investment company Ethical Capital Partners (ECP). No information was given about the purchase price. In addition to Pornhub, Mindgeek’s extensive portfolio also includes portals such as YouPorn, Redtube, Brazzers, Men.com, Sean Cody and Trans Angels.
“At ECP we look for innovative and ethical companies that operate at the frontier of new, developing industries,” said Fady Mansour, one of ECP’s founders, explaining the acquisition of the porn portal operator. According to the notice ECP wants to invest so that Mindgeek not only powers the most popular adult entertainment sites, but also becomes a leading internet provider in the fight against illegal content online.
Visa and Mastercard stopped payments
Mindgeek has apparently had serious problems in the fight against such content on its pages in recent years. For example, Visa and Mastercard stopped payments to Mindgeek’s advertising subsidiary Trafficjunky in 2022. Visa had become part of a lawsuit filed by a woman whose then-boyfriend uploaded a video to Pornhub showing the plaintiff engaging in sexual activity when she was 13. In the same year, Mindgeek’s CEO Feras Antoon and COO David Tassillo resigned from their posts, but remained in the company as shareholders.
In 2020, in response to reports of child sexual abuse content on Pornhub, Visa and Mastercard had temporarily completely severed their business relationships with the portal. Pornhub responded by blocking almost 9 million videos on the site. The company has also faced various lawsuits over non-consensual sex videos uploaded to Mindgeek sites. Nowadays, MindGeek emphasizes zero tolerance for any illegal content on its websites.
(sigh)
