This will be interesting: Ofcom have imposed a headline-grabbing fine on “AVS Group” for £1 million — plus a second fine of £50,000 — for dereliction under the Online Safety Act.

The first fine is politically intentionally dramatic; but it’s the second fine which is far more interesting…

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Ofcom document number 1 tells us that AVS operates the following websites

[Ofcom] have opened an investigation into AVS Group Ltd in relation to the adult sites: pornzog, txxx/.tube, upornia, hdzog/.tube, thegay/.tube, ooxxx, hotmovs, hclips, vjav, pornl, voyeurhit, manysex, tubepornclassic, shemalez/.tube.

Ofcom document number 2 tells us that they’ve issued the huge fine because:

We are imposing a penalty on AVS Group Ltd of £1,000,000 in respect of the contravention of section 12. This penalty was set having regard to our Penalty Guidelines. In addition, AVS Group Ltd is now required to comply with section 12 by taking steps to implement highly effective age assurance on all remaining AVS Group websites that do not currently have such measures in place by 5pm GMT on 6 December 2025. Should AVS Group Ltd fail to comply with this requirement, a daily rate penalty of £1,000 per day will be imposed starting from 6 December 2025 until the section 12 duty is complied with or 16 March 2026, whichever is sooner.

But it also tells us about the smaller fine:

We are imposing a penalty on AVS Group Ltd of £50,000 in respect of the contravention of section 102(8). This penalty was set having regard to our Penalty Guidelines.

In addition, AVS Group Ltd is now required to take immediate steps to provide Ofcom with a complete list of all sites operated by AVS Group Ltd.

Should AVS Group Ltd fail to comply with this requirement, a daily rate penalty of £300 per day will be imposed starting from 4 December 2025 until the section 102(8) duty is complied with or 1 February 2026, whichever is sooner.

What does this mean?

Well, as I’m reading between the lines: it seems entirely possible that AVS have ghosted Ofcom and not actually communicated with them at all. Ofcom document number 3 is a huge splash which seems timed to lend weight to them and rebuff press coverage that the US Government is considering telling Ofcom to leave American companies alone, but nowhere have I heard from an AVS spokesperson in all this.

<thinks> “It may be that Ofcom is simply shouting into the wind?”

And then lo, comes the BBC:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c93nll07z3go

Porn site fined £1m over age checks has never responded to Ofcom

Ofcom has told the BBC it has never heard from a porn company it has fined £1m for failing to comply with the UK Online Safety Act.

It said it had been emailing AVS Group Ltd since it launched its investigation in July, but had not had a response at any point – so the firm had been fined an extra £50,000.

The Act makes it a legal requirement for websites that host pornographic material to put in place what the regulator determines to be “highly effective age assurance” to prevent children from being able to easily access explicit content.

Ofcom said AVS must now implement highly effective age assurance within 72 hours or face an additional penalty of £1,000 a day.

In addition to the AVS fine, Ofcom also announced that one “major social media company” was going through compliance remediation with its enforcement team.

The regulator has not named the platform but says there may be formal action if it does not see sufficient improvement soon.

I’m guessing that AVS is a matryoshka of shell companies with a few sweaty guys at its heart.

If Ofcom keep running up against non-payment it’s not going to look good.