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5 months agoI mean, we kinda already ended up there with the Ashley Madison hack in 2015. Problems with that site aside, I feel like it’s kinda the blueprint for everything wrong with companies that retain personally identifable info on folks. If a company collects details like your driver’s license, it’s not a question of if it gets out but when. There’s just no way to collect that sort of data and truly keep it safe.
But, it seems like we’ve kinda forgotten how to learn lessons in the modern day, so I’m sure this was an isolated issue and we’ll never see it’s like again.
(/s on that last part, just in case that wasn’t blindingly obvious.)
Along with what the others have said, legally I think it’s just too close to the fire for them.
Porn has always existed in a bit of a legal grey area, that much is true. But with the more modern evangelical assault on it I feel like it’s more in the grey area than ever.
It’s one thing for them to say “I’m sorry Texas, but the ip says it’s coming from California. We can’t digitally sluth the locations of every user on our site.”. It’s another for them to say “We got a porn website that’s legal in some states and a VPN that’s legal in the rest! Assemble it yourself!”.
Is it legal to do that? Sure? Probably? I don’t know, I’m not a lawyer. Is it smart? No. I don’t think it is. Pornhub scrapes by because they can be seen to be putting in the token effort to comply with the puritanical laws foisted upon them. At present, that’s enough for everyone to declare victory and go home happy. If pornhub starts flaunting those laws though, by doing things like for example packageing in a service that bypasses state legal restrictions, lawmakers will get pissy and get even more draconian about shit. Which means pornhub will either have to get more creative or maybe won’t survive.
It’s eminently stupid, but this is the dance we’re all locked in at the moment.