Aylo (formerly known as MindGeek) is a Canadian multinational pornographic conglomerate owned by Canadian private equity firm Ethical Capital Partners. It is primarily involved in internet pornography, operating a number of video sharing websites (including platforms such as Pornhub, RedTube, Tube8, and YouPorn), and pornographic film studios such as Brazzers, Digital Playground, Men.com, Reality Kings, Sean Cody, and WhyNotBi.com, among others. Aylo's headquarters are located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, but the company's corporate structure is divided among entities domiciled in a number of other countries (including tax havens such as Curaçao and Luxembourg).
The company is one of the largest distributors of online pornography, to the extent that it has been accused of having a monopoly position (with 3 out of the 10 most popular online pornography sites being owned by the company). In 2013, a spokesperson for the company stated that its properties were among the top five users of internet bandwidth in the world.
The company has been subject to a number of lawsuits and filed litigation against its competitors. They were sued in California for hosting non-consensual pornography produced by GirlsDoPorn, on allegations of coercing women into recorded performances under false pretenses. In January 2021, a class action lawsuit making similar claims was launched in Montreal for anyone who had pornography photos and videos, some of which may have been taken when they were underage, shared on its websites without their consent, since 2007. The lawsuit stated that the company knowingly did not "investigate or question its business partner regarding the mounting evidence of sex trafficking". In February 2021, a U.S.-based civil class action lawsuit was launched against the company on behalf of child sex trafficking victims whose child sexual abuse material was uploaded to Pornhub. On 21 December 2023, Aylo agreed to pay a fine of $1.8million plus additional compensation to GirlsDoPorn victims, and to have an independent party assess their content moderation processes for three years.
History Origin and merger In the late 1990s, German Fabian Thylmann created NATS (Next-Generation Affiliate Tracking Software), which was used for marketing pornography across different websites. Mansef was funded by Concordia University graduates Stephane Manos and Ouissam Youssef (Mansef a portmanteau of the two's surnames) in 2004 as the holding company for various "thumbnail gallery post" websites and an affiliate network. It later launched Brazzers and a porn production company among various other pay sites.
In 2006, Thylmann sold his shares in the company that controlled NATS and used the proceeds to purchase the Privat Amateure website. Matt Keezer started Pornhub in 2007 under Interhub in which Mansef was also a partner. Mansef was run as a familial business with several of the company managers being related to each other; Manos, Youssef and Keezer later wanted to sell the companies, looking to move onto other ventures.The Butterfly Effect with Jon Ronson – Ep. 1: A Nondescript Building in Montreal Between 2006 and 2010, Thylmann bought three more websites: MyDirtyHobby, Webcams, and Xtube. The domain name manwin.com was first registered in August 2007.
In March 2010, Thylmann bought the assets of Mansef and Interhub, and merged the properties into a new entity called Manwin. Thylmann also bought WebCams.com in a separate deal during the same period.
Website acquisitions Manwin went on an acquisition spree of other popular pornographic entities. In June 2010, Manwin opened non-adult video sharing website Videobash.com (now defunct). In September 2010, Manwin acquired EuroRevenue, which owned various niche pornography sites. In November 2010, Manwin introduced celebrity news website Celebs.com (now defunct). In December 2010, Manwin entered into a partnership with Wicked Pictures to manage Wicked Pictures' paysites. The 2010 Manwin purchases accounted for US$130 million in debt. In 2011, the company raised US$362 million in financing from 125 secret investors, including Fortress Investment Group, JPMorgan Chase, and Cornell University.
In May 2011, Manwin acquired the pornographic video sharing website YouPorn. In June 2011, Manwin bought all adult related assets of Carsed Marketing Incorporated, including Twistys, Twistys Cash Affiliate Program, GayTube, SexTube, and TrannyTube. Manwin also created 3DXSTAR in a partnership with Funky Monkey Productions. In November 2011, Manwin became an operating partner of Playboy, managing the brand's online and entertainment business Playboy Plus Entertainment, which operates a number of television channels and online services based in the UK and Benelux. Manwin also launched Legendary Stats, a service that aggregates multiple affiliate programs and is targeted at affiliate site operators with large traffic volumes.
In January 2012, Manwin signed a deal to acquire the assets of the American pornographic movie studio Digital Playground. In April 2012, Manwin and Miami-based RK Netmedia Inc. filed a merger notification jointly authorized by Manwin and Reality Kings with the Austrian Federal Competition Authority. In September 2012, Manwin completed the acquisition. Company documents show that following the deal in the autumn, RK Holdings gave a Dublin company, Manwin Content RK, the right to use thousands of its pornography movies. In June 2012, Manwin launched Babes.com for its "glamcore" network.
In March 2013, MindGeek's co-owner Feras Antoon and his brother Mark Antoon were cited alongside the CEO of gaming technology giant Amaya Inc. and various of its own senior officers and stakeholders. The Quebec Market Authority, the province's market regulator that is somewhat equivalent to the U.S. SEC, investigated Amaya's executives for trading on privileged information. According to the charges, some MindGeek executives were found to have benefited from the leak of information, although they were not major players in the insider trading ring.
In July 2013, Manwin filed a merger notification with the Austrian Competition Authority to acquire RedTube.com. During the summer of 2013, Manwin / MindGeek acquired all of RedTube properties from Hong Kong–based Bright Imperial Ltd. for an undisclosed sum. In December 2013, the domain name RedTube8.xxx was also transferred to MindGeek after a trademark dispute.
Rebranding as MindGeek
In October 2013, Thylmann sold his stake in Manwin, after facing tax evasion charges, to the senior management of the company, composed of Feras Antoon and David Tassilo, for $100 million, and later in the same month the company's name was changed to MindGeek. This took place as Manwin and RedTube, a large porn tube site not in its network, merged.
Playboy CEO Scott Flanders described the 2011 partnership with MindGeek as "the biggest mistake I've made at the company," saying that "Playboy should not have association with being in the sex-act business." In the spring of 2014, Playboy took back control of Playboy.com "at significant expense", although MindGeek still retained control of Playboy TV and Playboy Plus, and MindGeek still owns the Spice Networks TV channels, which were also bought from Playboy.
In December 2014, MindGeek announced they had signed a deal to manage the online assets of Really Useful Ltd., some of which include the websites BDSM.xxx, Casting.xxx, Czech.xxx, DaneJones.com, Fake Taxi, Lesbea.com, MassageRooms.com, Mature.xxx, Mom.xxx, Orgasms.xxx, PublicAgent.com, PublicSex.xxx, Teen.xxx, and Tubes.xxx.
In April 2015, Playboy Plus and M7 Group formed a partnership to launch Reality Kings TV in Benelux and Central and Eastern Europe on satellite TV services. In May 2015, MindGeek signed a distribution deal with Pulse Distribution, one of the largest distributors of adult entertainment, to distribute content from MindGeek's movie studios, including content from Brazzers and Digital Playground, and DVDs from Babes.com, Men.com, Mofos and Reality Kings. In October 2015, MindGeek acquired ExtremeTube, SpankWire, KeezMovies. These sites are interlinked in network called Spankwire Sites in similar fashion as the Pornhub Network.
In April 2018, MindGeek started accepting the Verge cryptocurrency as payment for their various services.
In December 2020, a Financial Times exposé was published, listing Bernd Bergmair as the main owner of MindGeek.
In June 2022, the company confirmed the resignation of its CEO, Feras Antoon, and its COO, David Tassillo.
On 16 March 2023, MindGeek was acquired by Ethical Capital Partners, an Ottawa-based private equity firm. This acquisition came a day after Netflix debuted the documentary Money Shot: The Pornhub Story, which looks at the controversies involving Pornhub.
Rebranding as Aylo In August 2023, MindGeek announced it was rebranding as Aylo; the company stated that the rebranding "comes in response to the need for a fresh start and a renewed commitment to innovation, diverse and inclusive adult content, and trust and safety."
Corporate structure Aylo operates under a complex structure of multiple companies in countries such as the British Virgin Islands, Canada, Curaçao, Cyprus, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mauritius, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Its structure has been described as mostly a way to avoid corporate tax by a de facto Canadian company; with billing companies in Ireland, subsidiaries in Curaçao and holding ones in Cyprus and Luxembourg, all countries that have been identified as tax havens or having lax tax regulations. Canada also has special tax treaties with Luxembourg, the legal headquarters of Aylo, where a Canadian subsidiary is exempt from taxes paid on royalties to its Luxembourg parent.
Most employees work at the headquarters in Montreal on Décarie Boulevard, where more than 1,000 are employed.
Adult industry In 2013, the adult industry news website XBIZ described MindGeek as "the largest adult entertainment operator globally", and a spokesperson from Manwin, who spoke to the Irish Independent newspaper in 2013, stated that they are "one of the top five bandwidth consumption companies in the world". The Internet pornography review site TheBestPorn.com lists 164 pornographic membership sites that are owned or represented by MindGeek.
It has been reported that MindGeek's dominance in online pornography may have negative results because of the monopolistic powers they have from owning both production and distribution avenues.
Pornhub Network
The "Pornhub Network" is a group of pornographic video sharing websites operated by Aylo, which includes GayTube, Peeperz, PornIQ (launched by Pornhub), Pornhub, RedTube, YouPorn, Tube8, and Thumbzilla. The network also operates PornMD, a video search engine that aggregates content from across the group. In March 2013 PornMD launched an interactive map which allows users to view the top 10 searches on PornMD for any selected country, and in February 2014 they introduced a live feed which shows search terms inputted by users in real time.
The three highest-ranked sites in the Pornhub Network are Pornhub, RedTube and YouPorn. In November 2013, it was reported that Pornhub has over 1 billion visitors per month, and a December 2014 article in Adweek states that Pornhub has 50 million daily visitors. Pornhub.com scores at Alexa Global Rank 27 (as of 18 March 2019). Pornhub has been criticized for hosting non-consensual pornography, with some victims reporting that Pornhub failed to act or acted slowly or ineffectively when pointed to the videos of them. They were also criticized for their partnership with GirlsDoPorn and failure to remove their videos from the website after sex trafficking charges against the company were filed. After significant backlash, on 14 December 2020, Pornhub removed all non-verified videos on their platform.