PARIS — A major adult company targeted by French anti-porn crusaders has reportedly hired a prestigious international law firm and a powerful communications and marketing conglomerate to lobby local government regulators to limit the scope of new sweeping regulations on adult content that they are considering.
WGCZ — owners of top European tube site XVideos and several other international adult companies, including Penthouse in the U.S. — has hired top international business law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan as well as a subsidiary of French media management giant Havas, according to a report this week by French business news site La Lettre A.
The high-profile move comes as the Conseil Supérieur de l’Audiovisuel — a regulatory body similar to the American FCC — is due to make a decision regarding a complaint by three non-profits which allege to advocate for “children’s welfare.”
e-Enfance (“e-Childhood”) and La Voix de l’Enfant (“The Voice of the Child”) believe that sites such as Pornhub, TuKif, XNXX, xHamster, XVideos, Redtube and YouPorn “make pornographic content accessible to minors and do not verify the age of those browsing or they merely make them check a box stating they are over 18,” their lawyer, Laurent Bayon, told newspaper Le Figaro in September when they announced a lawsuit trying to compel ISPs to block those sites in France.
The lawsuit was rejected in October in favor of the defendants, the leading French ISPs Orange, SFR, Bouygues Télécom, Free, Colt Technologies Services and Outre mer Télécomare.
A Controversial AV Law
Back in March, a WGCZ site began circulating a survey gathering public opinion about privacy concerns surrounding the Age Verification (AV) requirement and its implementation.
“Last summer,” the introduction to the survey began, “a law about domestic violence was amended with two articles concerning the distribution of pornography online. It imposes age verification on the users.”
The document also pointed out that less than 10% of “députés” (Representatives) were present during the vote and none of the legislators were asked about the law’s consequences or the method of age verification to be employed.
“If you ask yourself, as we do, what does pornography have to do with domestic violence, you’d be given this explanation: people can be induced to see and then reproduce ‘violent’ sexual practices seen online,” the WGCZ-sponsored statement noted.
Top Dollar and Euro Legal and Lobbying Guns
Back in April, according to public records, WGCZ also engaged the lawyers at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan and U.S. lobbying firm Mercury Public Affairs to lobby on unspecified “online speech and communications” and “internet compliance.”
That announcement was made in the wake of a media-ballyhooed lawsuit filed against XVideos and WGCZ by the religiously inspired anti-porn crusading group NCOSE (formerly known as Morality in Media).
The French media and marketing conglomerate Havas, a subsidiary of which WGCZ has reportedly engaged for their lobbying efforts in Paris, is linked to the powerful Bolloré business family.
Although the Bollorés’ media empire currently openly backs right-wing candidates (like a French Fox News), the conglomerate also controls Canal+, the last large broadcaster in France which is still open to explicit adult content.