Germany's highest administrative court for North Rhine-Westphalia has pulled the legal rug out from under the country's attempt to block two of the world's biggest porn sites by court order.
In two unappealable expedited rulings handed down in Münster on Friday, the Oberverwaltungsgericht NRW (OVG NRW) held that the state media authority, Landesanstalt für Medien NRW, may not require large access providers to block Pornhub and YouPorn for users in Germany — at least for now. The judges upheld earlier decisions from the Düsseldorf administrative court.
The blocking orders date to April 2024, when the LfM tried to force providers such as Vodafone to block the domains, arguing the sites lacked effective age verification and so breached the German youth media protection treaty (JMStV). The sites are operated by Aylo, which is based in Cyprus. Aylo and an internet provider fought the orders — and won.
The court's reasoning rejects national unilateralism in two steps. First, the EU's country-of-origin principle means an online service is primarily answerable to the law of the member state where it is established, here Cyprus. Second, and more decisively, the Digital Services Act, in force since February 2024, harmonises platform and youth-protection regulation across the EU, leaving no room for hard national measures such as domain blocking; where the DSA does allow such steps, it concentrates supervision at European level.
That does not mean the sites may serve minors unchecked. Under the DSA, Cyprus is the lead authority for YouPorn, while Pornhub — designated a very large online platform — falls to the European Commission, which has already opened proceedings and is expected to levy a fine. The rulings land in a fragmented European picture: the higher court in Rhineland-Palatinate ordered a block in August 2025, other courts later declined to uphold similar orders, and the Court of Justice of the EU ruled in June that member states may demand effective age verification from foreign porn providers — provided they first ask the platform's home country to act.
For now, German media regulators keep their hands tied on cross-border cases until European supervisors use their own instruments consistently. Pornography does not become legal for minors in Germany; it becomes Brussels' problem to police.
