The Paris court on Tuesday offered to organize mediation to find a way to prevent minors from accessing pornography on the internet, to the chagrin of Arcom, which asked telecom operators to immediately block several sites.
"The court considers that the present case includes eligibility criteria for mediation", declared during a turbulent hearing its first vice-president Fabrice Vert, promoter of this method of conflict resolution.
Priority question of constitutionality or new civil hearing
The decision to order the parties to negotiate will be formally taken on Thursday, but the choice of economist Bruno Deffains as mediator has already been put forward.
"The position of the regulator is not to lead workshops to help pornographic sites carry out their activity", regretted the lawyers of Arcom (ex-CSA), which was assigned by law of July 30, 2020 the power to request the blocking of a pornographic site if it finds that it is accessible by minors.
The Cypriot company MG Freesites, publisher of the Pornhub platform, one of the five sites targeted in this procedure, has for its part filed a priority question of constitutionality (QPC) which calls into question the legitimacy of Arcom to act.
The court will decide on October 4 whether or not to send this QPC to the Court of Cassation.
If this was not the case, a new civil hearing would be organized to examine the case on the merits.
A similar QPC was proposed in a joint administrative procedure.
“None of the technical solutions proved satisfactory”
During the debates, the lawyers representing Pornhub, Tukif, XHamster, Xvideos, Xnxx, targeted in December 2021 by a formal notice from Arcom and which are among the most visited sites in France, tried to prove their goodwill.
“None of the technical solutions that we have tested have proven satisfactory,” pleaded Elsa Rodrigues, lawyer for MG Freesites (MindGeek group), adding to wait for the “guidelines” announced in December by the regulator.
“There is no consensus on technical measures.
(…) No one tells us what to do, ”she continued.
Recent reports from the Cnil and Peren, the government's center of expertise, have recalled the risks associated with existing majority verification solutions offered by the industry, while paving the way for a system based on third-party trust.
The government is also preparing with the telecoms industry and child protection associations a default parental control system on smartphones, which will be fixed by decree "within a few weeks or months", indicated on Monday. entourage of the Minister Delegate for Digital, Jean-Noël Barrot.
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