{"id":51146,"date":"2026-09-07T13:20:02","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T11:20:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.venus-adult-news.com\/?p=51146"},"modified":"2026-09-07T13:20:03","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T11:20:03","slug":"ofcom-fines-xgroovy-730000-then-the-tube-geoblocks-britain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.venus-adult-news.com\/en\/adult-interest\/legal\/ofcom-fines-xgroovy-730000-then-the-tube-geoblocks-britain","title":{"rendered":"Ofcom fines Xgroovy \u00a3730,000 \u2014 then the tube geoblocks Britain"},"content":{"rendered":"

London \/ Berlin, 7 September 2026<\/em><\/strong> \u2014 The UK communications regulator Ofcom has imposed a \u00a3730,000 penalty on the operator of the free tube Xgroovy.com<\/strong>, splitting the sanction into \u00a3700,000 for operating without highly effective age assurance and \u00a330,000 for ignoring a statutory information request. After enforcement began, the site first added an age-check layer Ofcom accepts as capable of being \u201chighly effective,\u201d then cut the UK off entirely by geoblocking British IP addresses.<\/p>\n

That sequence is the story for operators, not the headline number. Age checks arrived only after the breach window had closed. The UK market was then abandoned. The corporate owner remains unnamed. And a daily \u00a3200 penalty is still running until the missing information is delivered, or until 3 November 2026.<\/p>\n

Not Grooby \u2014 and not an unnamed \u201cporn site\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Early consumer write-ups treated the target as anonymous. Ofcom\u2019s own notice is more precise: the provider of Xgroovy.com<\/strong> failed its duties between July 2025 and November 2025<\/strong>. The Confirmation Decision was issued on 3 September 2026 and published the following day. A non-confidential version of that decision is still promised \u201cin due course.\u201d Until then, every official document uses the same formula: \u201cthe provider of Xgroovy.com.\u201d<\/p>\n

That opacity is itself a compliance fact. Ofcom can fine a service it can identify by URL even when the operator will not confirm a company name, registered office or qualifying worldwide revenue. The regulator has said it will pursue collection for HM Treasury regardless of where the publisher sits. Whether that produces cash is another question: earlier this year Ofcom disclosed that Belize-linked AVS Group Ltd<\/strong> had still not paid its \u00a31 million age-check fine.<\/p>\n

A mid-tier tube that absorbed displaced traffic<\/strong><\/p>\n

Xgroovy is not a boutique niche site. Independent traffic panels put it in the global top few hundred websites, with on the order of 100 million-plus visits a month<\/strong> in mid-2026 and Germany consistently among its largest country markets<\/strong> after the United States. Semrush\u2019s July 2026 snapshot showed about 126 million visits, with Germany at roughly 11 percent of traffic. The product is a classic ad-supported tube: high volume, multi-daily updates, long-tail niches, downloads, and a mix of amateur and scraped mainstream clips. The domain has been live since around 2019.<\/p>\n

That profile explains why Ofcom opened the file when it did. Age-assurance duties for porn services took effect on 25 July 2025<\/strong>. The major tubes either installed \u201chighly effective age assurance\u201d (HEAA) or left the UK. Traffic did not disappear; it migrated. Ofcom has said repeatedly that it prioritises investigations where user numbers rose because competitors put checks in place<\/strong>. Xgroovy was pulled into that second wave on 10 September 2025<\/strong>, in a batch covering five operators and 22 sites that Ofcom said collectively drew more than eight million unique UK visitors a month.<\/p>\n

The 12-month enforcement clock<\/strong><\/p>\n

The file did not move quickly because the operator engaged. It moved because the operator did not.<\/p>\n