Ofcom Watch

Undress.cc is a nudification website from Itai Tech where users can submit a clothed image and receive the unclothed estimation. The website is currently self blocked to UK users.

It seems that this website maybe the first to be punished by Ofcom. Maybe the company was asking for trouble being an adult company that is stupidly registered in the UK. Ofcom writes:

Following an investigation, Ofcom has provisionally determined that there are reasonable grounds to believe Itai Tech Ltd has failed / is failing to comply with section 81 of the Online Safety Act (OSA). Section 81 imposes a duty on providers of services that fall under Part 5 of the OSA to ensure, through the use of highly effective age verification or age estimation (or both), that children are not normally able to encounter content that is regulated provider pornographic content.

Ofcom therefore issued a provisional notice of contravention to Itai Tech Ltd on 17 September 2025 under section 130 of the OSA. The notice also sets out our provisional view that Itai Tech Ltd has infringed its duties under section 102(8) of the OSA by failing to respond to a statutory request for information issued as part of the investigation.

The notice sets out the facts that Ofcom has relied upon to reach its provisional view, the actions we propose to take, and the rationale for those decisions. Itai Tech will now have a period of 20 working days to make representations to Ofcom, which will be carefully considered before reaching a final decision.

Ofcom has launched censorship investigations into the compliance of five companies -- which collectively run 22 pornography sites -- on grounds of lack of ID/age verification being implemented. Ofcom writes:

We have opened formal investigations into whether the following providers have highly effective age checks in place to protect children from encountering pornography across 22 websites: Cyberitic LLC, Web Prime Inc, Youngtek Solutions Ltd, ZD Media s.r.o and the provider of xgroovy. If we identify any further sites run by these companies, they will be added to our investigations.

These sites have been prioritised based on the risk of harm they pose and their user numbers, including where there have been significant increases in their user numbers since the 25 July deadline. Collectively, these sites have over 8 million unique monthly UK visitors.

We are also expanding the scope of our existing investigations into 8579 LLC and Itai Tech.

As well as investigating their compliance with the requirement to introduce age checks for pornographic content, we are now also investigating whether they have failed to respond adequately to statutory information requests from Ofcom.

 

The  Cyberitic LLC adult site is still available in the UK without ID/age verification:

• www.shesfreaky.com

The  Web Prime Inc adult sites are still available in the UK without ID/age verification:

• www.anysex.com
• www.fapality.com
• www.mylust.com
• www.xcafe.com
• www.yourlust.com

The Youngtek Solutions sites are set to introduce ID/Age verification:

• www.imagefap.com
• www.empflix.com
• www.moviefap.com,
• www.pornrepublic.com
• www.tnaflix.com

The  ZD Media adult sites are still available in the UK without ID/age verification:

• www.hello.porn
• www.homo.xxx
• www.max.porn
• www.ok.porn
• www.ok.xxx
• www.perfectgirls.xxx
• www.pin.porn
• www.pornhat.com
• www.pornhat.one
• www.pornstars.tube

XGroovy.com is still available in the UK without ID/age verification.

The 8579 LLC adult sites are still available in the UK without ID/age verification:

• 4kporn.xxx
• crazyporn.xxx
• love4porn.com
• hoes.tube.

It seems that Ofcom has reached an initial decision to fine the US forum and image sharing website £20,000 + a recurring daily fine for not complying with the UK's unilateral censorship laws.

It seems that Ofcom is attempting to fine the US based website, with no connection whatsoever to the UK beyond that it has readers there, for not submitting to Ofcom's onerous and burdonsome red tape requirements.

4chan has responded in a letter from its lawyers, Byrne and Storm:

4chan is incorporated in Delaware, has no assets or operations in the UK, and that any attempt to impose or enforce penalties will be resisted in U.S. federal court.

American businesses do not surrender their First Amendment rights because a foreign bureaucrat sends them an email. Under settled principles of U.S. law, American courts will not enforce foreign penal fines or censorship codes. If necessary, we will seek appropriate relief in U.S. federal court to confirm these principles. United States federal authorities have been briefed on this matter.

The Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer was reportedly warned by the White House to cease targeting American firms with UK censorship code.

Despite these warnings, Ofcom continues its illegal campaign of harassment against American technology firms. A political solution to this matter is urgently required and must come from the highest levels of American government. We call on the Trump Administration to invoke all diplomatic and legal levers available to protect American companies from extraterritorial censorship mandates.

Surely Ofcom's arrogant censorship overreach will surely unravel if 4chan win their case in the US courts. If UK censorship law ends up being restricted to companies with UK connections, then the red tape nightmare will be a massive competitive disadvantage to UK based firms forced to submit to the UK censorship nightmare.

 

Update: It seems Ofcom have announced intentions to fine Gab and Kiwi Farms too

24th August 2025. See article from theverge.com

It has been reported that Ofcom are minded to try and fine 4chan for crimes against UK morality, but it has now been reported that Ofcom also have gab and Kiwi Farms in their sights.

All of the sites are a bit toxic to UK woke sensibilities and maybe are pretty unpopular with US bigwigs too. So presumably it is Ofcom's strategy to target the most toxic of US sites perhaps in order to win their case with a few US judges that may feel that these three websites deserve a little censorship.

Surely this first battle with US courts will set massive precedents, whichever way the decision goes, so maybe it is a pretty shrewd tactic by the internet censors at Ofcom.

Newspaper reports are suggesting that visits to the three main porn websites, all now inflicting ID verification, have significantly declined. The reports have only published a few partially defined example stats from an analytics company called SimilarWeb that don't readily stack up with themselves.

Papers report that

• the most popular, Pornhub dropped from an estimated 3.8m on July 24 to 2.0m for an average day in August, a drop of 47%. The Daily Mail adds that this figure has dropped to 1.8m by 18th August.
• the second most popular,  XVideos dropped by a similar 47%
• the third most popular, xHamster dropped from an estimated 2.0m on July 24 to 1.2m for an average day in August, a drop of 39%.

That would seem to be an average drop of about 45%.

There are now three straightforward options for porn viewers to continue their entertainment ie

• Stupidly submit to the ID verification
• Simply move to the many smaller websites that haven't implemented ID verification, see list of adult websites and their ID verification status
• Use a VPN to continue to browse any porn site of your choice.

So it would seem a fair assumption that no porn viewers need be deprived of their adult entertainment and that they would probably continue very much as before.

It would therefore be reasonable to assume that 55% of porn viewers have submitted to ID verification whilst 45% have moved to non restricted websites or are using a VPN.

Surely Ofcom, the Government and the parasitic age verification companies will all be well pleased that so many people have opted for ID verification.

The SimilarWeb analytics do indeed suggest that there has been a significant upsurge for the non ID verifying smaller websites. The Daily Mail comments that the traffic to non-complying PornHat.com increased by 130% in the same time frame. Pornhub commented:

As we've seen in many jurisdictions around the world, there is often a drop in traffic for compliant sites and an increase in traffic for non-compliant sites.

The traffic stats also suggest that there has been no significant decline in visitors to X and Reddit that have introduced ID verification, but only for their adult sections. The majority of their websites are unrestricted  to all for the large majority of their content.

Ofcom has originally opened an investigation into the US image hosting site in June 2025. It has now added and extra clause an investigation into Non-compliance with the safety duties about illegal content.

The investigation now reads:

We are initiating an investigation to determine whether the online discussion board 4chan has failed204or is currently failing204to comply with its obligations under the Online Safety Act 2023. Our investigation will focus on potential breaches in the following areas:

• Failure to respond to a statutory information request;

• Failure to complete and keep a record of a suitable and sufficient illegal content risk assessment; and

• Non-compliance with the safety duties about illegal content.

See article from en.wikipedia.org

4chan.org is an anonymous English-language imageboard website. The site hosts boards dedicated to a wide variety of topics, from video games and television to literature, cooking, weapons, music, history, technology, anime, physical fitness, politics, and sports, porn, among others. Registration is not available, except for staff, and users typically post anonymously. 4chan receives more than 22 million unique monthly visitors, of whom approximately half are from the United States.

The website achieved a little notoriety in Donald Trump's first presidential term. The wesbite was identified for providing a voice to 'alt-right' (right leaning) Trump supporters who were otherwise silenced by an alliance of liberal internet companies and mainstream media outlets..

Offsite Comment: Allowing British authorities to demand compliance from virtually any website.

11th June 2025. See article from reclaimthenet.org

Ofcom has set its sights on 4chan, a US-hosted imageboard owned by a Japanese national. The site operates under US law and has no physical infrastructure, employees, or legal registration in Britain. Nonetheless, UK regulators have declared it fair game.

Wherever in the world a service is based if it has 'links to the UK', it now has duties to protect UK users, Ofcom insists.

That phrase, links to the UK, is intentionally vague and extraordinarily expensive, allowing British authorities to demand compliance from virtually any website.

This kind of extraterritorial overreach marks a direct threat to the principle of national sovereignty in internet governance. The UK is attempting to dictate the rules of online speech to foreign companies, hosted on foreign servers, and serving users in other countries, all because someone in Britain might visit their site.

 

So what will Donald Trump's government make of Ofcom's attempt to censor US free speech? Surely it will be an important step for Ofcom, it could easily be blocked by the US, or simply ignored. Surely this will set a precedent for thousands of other foreign websites that could end up simply ignoring Britain's arrogant censorship law.

Reporter Ash Parrish writes on the Verge website:

In the aftermath of itch.io pulling the sale of over 20,000 pages of adult content , the creators of that work are left feeling betrayed, exhausted, and fearful. The number of platforms that permit the sale of adult material is shrinking, and theres no guarantee the ones that remain will still permit it in the future.

To some creators, the most disheartening thing about itch.io removing thousands of pages of adult content is that its relatively unsurprising. The storefront is one of several in recent years that have embraced adult content only to shun it later when payment processors start asking questions. They've now found themselves booted from platform to platform, moving from Tumblr to Patreon to Gumroad, only to have the rug pulled out from under them each time.

But now, with their livelihoods at stake, many creators and their communities have begun to push back and search for new ways to thrive.

PixelJail, a creator who makes BDSM and other kink-related comics and illustration, has now opted to set up their own websites. But even without the burden of conforming to a platforms rules, having ones own website isnt a guarantee of absolute safety. In the UK, where PixelJail lives, the recently implemented Online Safety Act requires that online platforms have strong age checks in place to prevent children from accessing pornographic or harmful content.

When adult creators are regularly forced to find new places for their work, their business overall suffers. I can never get ahead, said PixelJail, a creator who makes BDSM and other kink-related comics and illustrations. I have to stop doing paid work to set up new accounts, backlog posting, pay for new subscriptions or services and other administrative tasks. I had to geoblock my websites in the UK, including my webstore, PixelJail said, meaning they no longer sell their work in their own country

See the full article from theverge.com

Ofcom has launched censorship investigations into the compliance of four companies -- which collectively run 34 pornography sites -- on grounds of lack of ID/age verification being implemented. Ofcom writes:

We have opened formal investigations into whether the following providers have highly effective age checks in place across 34 websites: 8579 LLC, AVS Group Ltd, Kick Online Entertainment S.A. and Trendio Ltd.

These companies have been prioritised based on the risk of harm posed by the services they operate and their user numbers. Collectively, these websites have over 9 million unique monthly UK visitors.

These new cases add to Ofcom's 11 investigations already in progress into 4chan, an online suicide forum, seven file-sharing services, First Time Videos LLC and Itai Tech Ltd. We expect to make further enforcement announcements in the coming weeks and months.

We will now gather and analyse evidence to determine whether any contraventions have occurred. If our assessment indicates compliance failures, we will issue provisional notices of contravention to providers, who can then make representations on our findings, before we make our final decisions.

The 8579 LLC adult sites are:

• 4kporn.xxx
• crazyporn.xxx
• love4porn.com
• hoes.tube.

The websites are still available in the UK without ID/age verification

The AVS Group Ltd sites are:

• pornzog.com
• txxx.com, txxx.tube
• upornia.com
• hdzog.com, hdzog.tube
• thegay.com, thegay.tube
• ooxxx.com
• hotmovs.com
• hclips.com
• vjav.com
• pornl.com
• voyeurhit.com
• manysex.com
• tubepornclassic.com
• shemalez.com, shemalez.tube.

These sites now require ID/age verification in the UK but are available using a VPN.

The Kick Online Entertainment S.A site is

• motherless.com

The website is still available in the UK without ID/age verification

The Trendio Ltd sites are:

• theyarehuge.com
• tranny.one
• ah-me.com
• ashemale.one
• bdsm.one
• bemyhole.com
• gaygo.tv, gayxo.com
• shemale.pub,
• sunporno.com
• yesvids.com

These site now require ID/age verification in the UK via a hasslesome multi selfie approach from agerify. However the sites are still available using a VPN.

On July 25, 2025, the UK's Video-Sharing Platforms (VSP) regime was repealed, and all notified services are now regulated under the Online Safety regime.

The  VSP regime ran in the UK for four years and was the UKs flagship online censorship regulation. Following its repeal, Ofcom took a look back at its journey to highlight what was achieved, as well as 5 things industry can learn from online safety regulation in practice. See article from ofcom.org.uk

What Ofcom doesn't comment on in these wishy washy achievements is to note how few video sharing platforms have stupidly decided to be based in Britain.

So most of the major tube sites have decided to implement ID verification for UK viewers. But thankfully there are still plenty of options of websites that have not yet implemented ID verification requirements. Here is a useful list of porn sites to try to find those not inflicting ID verification: toppornsites.com .

For viewers stupidly subscribing to the risk of handing over ID to watch porn I noted that many websites were promising to not keep a copy of ID data provided for verification purposes and then immediately demanding an email address that will be kept for furture visits. Surely an email address is a key piece of identity data that should not be retained.

Surely a better idea is purchase a VPN and access porn as if in a different country from the UK. For the moment all the major porn sites stil allow access via VPN. Perhaps one day this will not be 5the case when ID verification is adopted worldwide. Also not that it is up to websites whether they allow access via VPN or not. Under threat of extreme punishment they could reasonably easily one day block access from VPNs. (as the likes of BBC and Netflix already do).

Another option is to install a tor browser (the onion ring I think). See torproject.org . This is a browser that looks bery much like Firefox but obtains page data via  complicated and encrypted routing that evades censorship and country specific blocking. It is not quite as 100% succesful as a VPN but can be used to watch porn on the main porn websites.

But of course the authorities will not be very pleased by these straightforward workarounds, and they have put in place a censorship rule to prevent adult websites from themselves promoting workarounds. According to Ofcom and the BBC, platforms must not host, share or permit content that encourages the use of VPNs to get around age checks and it will be illegal for them to do so.

An Aylo spokesperson, the parent company of Pornhub said parents are advised to block VPN usage just in case, and  told the BBC that the question of VPNs was an issue for governments, adding:

We certainly do not recommend that anyone uses technology to bypass the law.'

Aylo has publicly called for effective and enforceable age assurance solutions that protect minors online, while ensuring the safety and privacy of all users. The United Kingdom is the first country to present these same priorities demonstrably

Thankfully such censorship laws simply don't apply to websites out of Ofcom's remit so there will surely be plenty of sources of information available to workaround the dangers of ID verification for porn.

 

Update: VPNs galore

27th July 2025. From the Financial Times

The Financial Times has reported on the inevitably booming sales and downloads  of VPNs.

Proton VPN has leapfrogged ChatGPT to become the top free app in the UK, according to Apple. Proton VPN has experienced a 1800% increase in daily UK. sign-ups. NordVPN has seen 1000% increase in UK purchases.

A Proton spokesperson told Mashable:

This clearly shows that adults are concerned about the impact universal age verification laws will have on their privacy.

Ofcom has published a statement detailing how they will expect larger websites to report on how they have applied censorship rules to user content. Ofcom writes:

The decisions explained in this statement set out our final positions on our guidance on transparency reporting. Our final guidance explains when and how Ofcom will exercise its transparency powers. It is designed to provide stakeholders with information about how the transparency reporting process under the online safety regime will work in practice, including the factors Ofcom will consider when deciding what information providers must publish in their reports, how we will produce our own Ofcom transparency reports and how we will engage with stakeholders throughout the process.

The Online Safety Act makes platforms -- including social media, search, and pornography services -- legally responsible for keeping people, especially children, safe online. Certain duties in the Act apply to all regulated services, while a set of additional duties apply only to certain services. The duty to publish transparency reports only applies to providers of certain regulated services, specifically those that appear on a public register of categorised services prepared by Ofcom.

Categorised services will have to publish transparency reports according to requirements that are set out by Ofcom in transparency notices. Our draft guidance lays out our proposed approach to determining what information relevant services are required to publish in their reports, as well as information about how we will engage with services throughout the reporting process.

Ofcom is also required to produce its own transparency report that draws conclusions based on the substance of the reports produced by providers. Our draft guidance presents our proposed approach to using information from service providers transparency reports in our own report.

Salaam BCR is a local radio station in the Manchester area.

Ofcom has just fined the radio station owners Markaz-Al-Huda Ltd for material broadcast on Salaam BCR on 17 October 2023 at 14:00 and 16:3

The fine of £3500 was imposed for breaches of the Ofcom censorship rules:

• Rule 3.2: “Material which contains hate speech must not be included in…radio programmes…except where it is justified by the context”;

• Rule 3.3: “Material which contains abusive or derogatory treatment of individuals, groups, religions or communities, must not be included in…radio services…except where it is justified by the context”; and

• Rule 2.3: “In applying generally accepted standards broadcasters must ensure that material which may cause offence is justified by the context…Such material may include, but is not limited to, offensive language…discriminatory treatment or language (for example on the grounds of…race, religion or belief…) ...Appropriate information should also be broadcast where it would assist in avoiding or minimising offence”.

The offending programme was broadcast on Salaam BCR featuring a 38- minute speech delivered by Mr Shujauddin Sheikh. The speech was delivered to an audience outside the Karachi Press Club in Pakistan on 12 October 2023. During the programme, Mr Shujauddin presented his views on the ongoing situation in the Middle East and, in particular, what he considered to be a lack of response by Muslim leaders around the world to the suffering of Palestinian Muslims in Gaza.

Ofcom concluded this broadcast contained antisemitic hate speech and abusive and derogatory statements, which were potentially highly offensive and not justified by the context.

Ofcom has commenced investigations into two pornographic services - Itai Tech Ltd and Score Internet Group LLC - under our age assurance enforcement programme.

Under the Online Safety Act, online services must ensure children cannot access pornographic content on their sites. In January, we wrote to online services that display or publish their own pornographic content to explain that the requirements for them to have highly effective age checks in place to protect children had come into force. We requested details of services' plans for complying, along with an implementation timeline and a named point of contact.

Encouragingly, many services confirmed that they are implementing, or have plans to implement, age assurance on around 1,300 sites. A small number of services chose to block UK users from accessing their sites, rather than putting age checks in place.

Certain services failed to respond to our request and have not taken any steps to implement highly effective age assurance to protect children from pornography.

We are today opening investigations into Itai Tech Ltd - a service which runs the nudification site Undress.cc - and Score Internet Group LLC, which runs the site Scoreland.com. Both sites appear to have no highly effective age assurance in place and are potentially in breach of the Online Safety Act and their duties to protect children from pornography. Next steps

We will provide an update on both investigations on our website in due course, along with details of any further investigations launched under this enforcement programme

 

Update: Low Scores

2nd July 2025. See article from ofcom.org.uk

Ofcom has closed its investigation of scoreland.com after the website introduced age/ID verification. The website now requires that UK users subscribe using a credit card (no debit cards) before content can be viewed. Visitors from other countries can see teaser images and can pay via several other options.

Ofcom writes:

In response to our investigation, Score Internet Group LLC have taken steps to implement highly effective age assurance to ensure compliance with their duties under Part 5 of the OSA.

As such, Ofcom is satisfied that the conduct that led to the opening of the investigation has ceased and we do not consider it appropriate to continue our investigation. We have therefore closed it without making any findings as to Score Internet's compliance with its duties, either currently or prior to its confirmation that it had taken steps to comply with the OSA.