Adult Site Broker Talk Episode 113 with Gavin Worrall of Verify my Age and Verify my Content

Speaker 1 (0s): This is Bruce Friedman of Adult Site Broker and welcome to Adult Site Broker Talk, where every week we interview one of the movers and shakers of the adult industry, and we discuss what's going on in our business. Plus we give you a tip on buying and selling websites this week. This week we'll be speaking with Gavin Worrall of Verify my Age and Verify my Content.

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Now let's feature our property of the week that's for sale at adult site broker, we're proud to offer for sale a content company that stood the test of time. They recently redesigned and relaunch their site with a completely new front and back end and an all new automated FTP system. Since that time sales have soared, the site now has over 50,000 scenes, 50,000 photo sets, 10,000 DVDs, and over 10,000 models. Their content represents the top studios in the adult industry.

They have exclusive content with some of their studios and thousands of raw HD scenes yet to be used plus close to 10,000 HD scenes that can generate revenue from VOD or P P V. This company can be kept as is or turned into a massive tube site membership site, or clip store with an incredible amount of content. Only 1.75 million. Now time for this week's interview. My guest today, an adult site broker talk is Gavin worl of verify my age and verify my content.

Gavin, thanks for being with us today on adult site. Broker talk,

Speaker 2 (2m 22s): Bruce, thank you for having me. I know I've been character.

Speaker 1 (2m 29s): We were supposed, we were supposed to do this one about eight months ago, but I know

Speaker 2 (2m 33s): Exactly.

Speaker 1 (2m 34s): I know since, since the new product you've been pretty busy, so I'll let you off the hook this time, but don't let it happen again. Okay. So let's tell everyone about you for the past 20 years, Gavin has worked across a wide range of sectors, mainly in financial services, such as corporate finance, consumer lending banking. I won't hold it against you, PSPS and FX. He has vast experience working in regulated markets. Having spent over a decade with the well respected banking group, close brothers in the UK, which is listed on the foot C two 50.

His passion is in sales. So we share that where he is a fellow for the Institute of sales professionals, and I'm not. And often mentors and develops up and coming graduates. He's driven by the desire to solve business problems often created by regulators don't. We know that and the adult sector is an exciting and challenging area to develop. That's an understatement. Finally, he is a south African born Brit lives in the UK, so he has a great accent, travels the globe. Speaking about the benefits of verify my age and verify my content.

How was that for a commercial?

Speaker 2 (3m 42s): Fantastic. I'm going to, I'm gonna bring you on board. That was brilliant.

Speaker 1 (3m 46s): Okay. Sounds good. So besides what I just covered, Gavin, tell me a little bit about yourself.

Speaker 2 (3m 53s): So yeah, I guess Bruce, the, the most exciting element for me in what we do is solve these issues that are coming about by regulators. So, so from my point of view, I'm someone that enjoys unpacking all of this regulation identifying.

Speaker 1 (4m 13s): So you're the one. So you're the one.

Speaker 2 (4m 16s): Yeah. So, so regulators are often the bad guy, right? They often seen as the bad guy and, and we find ways to actually step back and look at what they're trying to achieve and then deliver something that is quick and simple and frictionless to the industry. There are number of rules and regulations that are constantly coming out, right? So anyone within the financial industry, it's a massive headache. And what we always do is just find technological means to satisfy those regulators.

So it doesn't impact the business. Right. Simple as that.

Speaker 1 (4m 53s): Right. Right.

Speaker 2 (4m 54s): And we've got, and I've brought that same philosophy mindset. Yeah. To verify my age in content, especially within the adult sector, because well, there's regulation everywhere and there's only gonna be more of it. I'm afraid. It's it's certainly not gonna go away.

Speaker 1 (5m 9s): Sure, sure. Yeah. I think, I think age verification is going to be everywhere.

Speaker 2 (5m 16s): It is. There's there's no getting away from it. From alcohol in store, from purchasing alcohol online to the adult entertainment sector. Sure. It's it's it's, that's just gonna be the bottom line. Sure. And look at the end of the day, when you look at our children, Bruce, all they do is live on social media. I've I often don't have any clue what my kid, what my kids are looking at or what they're doing.

Speaker 1 (5m 44s): I'm pretty safe.

Speaker 2 (5m 45s): I just have dogs, I think to a certain extent

Speaker 1 (5m 47s): Our dogs aren't our dogs. Aren't online. Oh, you look good thing.

Speaker 2 (5m 50s): Oh, you're lucky, man. You're lucky, man.

Speaker 1 (5m 54s): Well, what about you? What about you personally? So, you know, what, what do you like to do? Tell us about yourself outside of work.

Speaker 2 (6m 3s): Yeah, sure. So I'm a, I'm a very sporting individual being from South Africa originally. I love my rugby.

Speaker 1 (6m 12s): Of course.

Speaker 2 (6m 13s): So every weekend I'm with my boy watching him play rugby and nice. And my, and my wife, she stays at home because she can't take the fact that we have these very big lads hitting each other very D very hard. And she had preferred just to stay at home, get a text message.

Speaker 1 (6m 35s): It's it's like American football without pads,

Speaker 2 (6m 38s): Without the pads. That's it. It's crazy. Isn't it? I

Speaker 1 (6m 42s): Think's a great sport.

Speaker 2 (6m 44s): Oh, it's a lovely sport. It's I think it's a great certainly for, for teenagers, you know, Bruce coming up and they got all that excess testosterone they need to get rid of. It's a, it's a great sport

Speaker 1 (6m 57s): To just give me some.

Speaker 2 (6m 60s): Yeah.

Speaker 1 (7m 2s): I'm 64 and I'm growing tits. Come on, give some of that test.

Speaker 2 (7m 8s): So

Speaker 1 (7m 8s): You were, you were starting, you were starting to say about your wife. Sorry. I interrupted.

Speaker 2 (7m 12s): No, she just hates it. She hates the sport. I can understand why she's looking at her little boy, come home with broken limbs and a broken eye socket and

Speaker 1 (7m 21s): My God.

Speaker 2 (7m 23s): So she, she likes to, and then you got my daughter on the other hand who just refuses to do any type of sport. She just preferred to either read a book or actually probably spends too much time on social media to be fair.

Speaker 1 (7m 36s): Don't they? Yeah. How, how old were your kids?

Speaker 2 (7m 39s): 17 and 15 now. Oh, wow. So, so we get into that point where it's university in six months for my son. Oh my God. And then my daughter goes into her senior year as well. So it makes you feel very old. I must say I feel like an old man. Although I feel, I feel like I'm still in my twenties, Bruce. I feel like I'm still in my, yeah.

Speaker 1 (7m 59s): Yeah. I'm I'm 64. I don't wanna fucking hear it anyway. So, so now you come from mainstream, primarily finance. How has your experience been so far working in the adult space?

Speaker 2 (8m 12s): So I guess there a lot of transferable skills that we have brought across primarily around understanding regulation. And when we look at the adult industry, we've taken that viewpoint. Let's just look at what is the regulation that's currently in Setu and what do we know is going to be coming around the corner? Right. So in many respects, it's very similar from a regulatory point of view, but it has, it has been eye-opening for us for, for those of us that are, are new to the adult industry.

Yeah. Only from a point of view of, you know, the, we didn't think there was as much adult entertainment out there is what there is. Oh God. And I, I think as we started to get into it, our, our eyes were opening and going, wow, this is massive. This is, there's so much bigger than what we thought it would

Speaker 1 (9m 5s): Be. There's tons. Yeah. There's tons. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (9m 8s): How about,

Speaker 1 (9m 9s): How about the people you've dealt with?

Speaker 2 (9m 10s): Oh, absolutely. Fantastic. Absolutely loved it. I think what I love about this industry is the, although it's a, a vast industry, it's a small community. Yes. And, and I think we all work in with a common goal at the end of the day, you know, which is, you know, this is our business. We wanna make it succeed and develop. So everyone is willing to have open conversations and discussions, Bruce it's. It is, it is so different to obviously the financial sector.

This is an environment where you can actually make things happen for the good, whether it's for your business, whether it's for the community, whether it's for a social reason. And, and I think that's what we really enjoying so far.

Speaker 1 (9m 58s): Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It it's a family. I, I say it on almost every show when I talk to people, this is a big family and just like any family it's got it's good and bad, but for the most part, some

Speaker 2 (10m 13s): It's good.

Speaker 1 (10m 13s): Yeah. Yeah. Very cool people. So tell us more about verify my age and how it can help companies in our space.

Speaker 2 (10m 23s): Probably the best way to answer that is just to give you a quick overview of how we came about. So two year two coming on three years now, actually we we're a group of entrepreneurs who were selling age restricted products, but the incumbents that were in the market at the time, just, just weren't up to scratch. So the decision was made to build our own form of technology to help our own business at the time. And I think that's what separates us from a lot of the other players in the market, Bruce, because we've got that empathy of understanding what the end users going through.

So we've designed and developed very far my age to help streamline that and make it as effortless and as frictionless as possible. Okay. But then on the other side, we also understand what a business is going through, which is they need to have the highest possible pass rate. So very far, my age was designed to provide maximum methodologies around age verification. So if you were purchasing a form of alcohol, there would be six or seven different methods that you could use to get verified.

So therefore maximizing that opportunity. So the business was, was built with that in mind. And we have gradually moved and developed into all forms of age restricted sectors at the is one of our biggest, one of, of our largest customers on the age verification side of the world is eBay. So you purchase anything from eBay that's age restricted.

It has to come through our form of technology in order to approve it before the product can be shipped out. Okay. So we, so we've got this great tech, that's doing all of this. We we've developed our team over the last two to three years. So we've got guys in Australia, the us, and in Brazil who are helping develop our product and sell it and, and put it in front of organizations that, that need to consider a form of age assurance and, and content moderation.

And I think then over the years, we've just looked at that tech and developed it. We've streamlined. It we've in many respects, tried to perfect. What's already out there for the, for the adult industry.

Speaker 1 (12m 49s): Did you guys come about with the regulations that have been on again, off again on again in the UK with, with adults?

Speaker 2 (12m 58s): So that's interesting. It's a good question there, because I'm asked it quite often. So very far my age came about simply to solve an existing eCommerce problem, which was bad age verification providers. Hmm. Then as we start noticed the UK regulations starting to kick in, we started to therefore develop that same, that same pack of, of, of, of product, okay. To satisfy the UK rigs. Right.

But to be fair, the tech was already there. So there wasn't much that needed to be done.

Speaker 1 (13m 32s): Hmm. And, and how has the on again, off again on again, UK and other country laws affected you guys?

Speaker 2 (13m 41s): A lot of what we do Bruce, is we try to almost embed ourselves with regulators as much as we possibly can. Yeah. So we can UN so we can understand what's coming. So although the UK was, was on and off the way they were, I think we still have a strong belief it's gonna be on right. At some point. So yeah, the, the tech is there to be deployed as, and when it's needed. But what we've been able to do is therefore diversify that very far, my age product, right.

To satisfy new regulations, like MasterCard coming out with their change to, to, to their standards. So it didn't have a negative effect on us because our core business was in the FM at the time. So in many respects it, us a bit of a favor because we were able to improve that technology even more so.

Speaker 1 (14m 36s): Yeah. And, and, you know, here's the thing, as we talk, talking about adults, since this is our, our main focus here, nobody in our industry that I know of anyway, wants kids to be able to access porn. In fact, we even have an organization, the association for the, as a C P I forget what it stands stands for, but I'm sure you've had contacted with Tim Henning and it's fully funded by the adult industry to stop people from stop kids from accessing porn and stop underage people from being in porn.

So I don't think anybody wants kids to access porn or kids or underage kids to be, you know, in adult, unless they're very sick people and the mainstream adult world doesn't deal with those people. So it might, as a parent, this must be a bit of a crusade for you.

Speaker 2 (15m 35s): It's interesting. When you look at the UK, there is often a conversation amongst the education sector of the rape culture within schools. And that is primarily come about by the easy access to pornography. I mean, Bruce, I might be showing my age here, but when I was growing up, I thought there were perhaps in fact, not just as I was growing up in my later years, I thought there were maybe two or three porn sites.

And that's it, there's a lot of

Speaker 1 (16m 7s): People who still think that

Speaker 2 (16m 9s): I've, I've about 17 year old son, educate me on different sites that I thought didn't exist.

Speaker 1 (16m 15s): Excellent. Excellent.

Speaker 2 (16m 16s): So, so I think it is interesting how, how easy it is to get access to it. Sure. I, I do. I do think, and I totally agree with you what person in their say in mind would want to place children at harm and put them on a porn site. Sure. A it's going to negatively impact their business as we know it's happened. So therefore, why would they even consider doing that? Right. The problem is, as you know, is your unscrupulous individuals who are doing this type of thing. So this is, and again, this leads very much into what we do, which is, it's less about trying to avoid those negative content uploads from taking place.

Right. But more but more so protecting their business to make sure it never happens. So their business continues to thrive. Yeah. Right. It was, I was at the conference in Vegas a few weeks ago. And again, what you've just said was mimicked at that conference, which is compliance is important. Yes. The whole MasterCard rules are annoying, but everyone agreed, you know, if this is what needs to take place in order to protect our businesses from the unscrupulous and let's just do it, right.

Speaker 1 (17m 36s): Yeah, yeah. No, there's no two ways about it. So let's just say that I'm in a country that requires age verification. There are some now, and I go to a site that employs your company to do age verification. Tell me a little bit about the process. I go on the website. I go to buy what happens then?

Speaker 2 (17m 57s): So typically what will happen is we'll go through a form of what we call age estimation. So the very far, my age product is highly geared towards a frictionless easy experience for the user. So the way we do that is we use our tech. We'd ask someone to stare into the camera and our technology will give an estimation of age and interesting that very, and that barrier can be set from high to low Bruce.

We, we have some countries that say, right, we want a minimum of 25 so that if anyone gets through that age estimation, we can be absolutely certain. They are 18 years and above. Okay. And then others toggle that down to the age of 21. Right. But the technology is highly sophisticated. It, it has been built over years to get as close to the age as possible. There's and what I mean by that is the age estimation will give a potential difference or between one to one and a half years.

Yeah. So it's important that the top set correctly. So that's the one way to do it. The other way is we have developed a number of other methods. So if the age estimation, for example fails, we then allow the user to choose another method that could be identity document gets held up to the camera and that gets read. It could be an email address. So we can actually identify when an email was taken out or how often it is utilized. So that gives us an idea that if someone took out an email account 15 years ago, we can make a reasonable assumption there over the years of 18 or 21 dependent on which territory they they're

Speaker 1 (19m 42s): In. No, that's interesting. Wow. Wow. Interesting stuff. So, and I would imagine the camera technology is all using AI.

Speaker 2 (19m 49s): Absolutely. A hundred percent AI. Interesting. When we, when we look to and we'll touch on very far more content, I'm sure we then also leverage human individuals if there's a borderline case. Yeah. Cause I think, I think the, the, the content world is a little different. We need to be a little more sophisticated because we talking about revenues, we talking about business businesses trying to make an income. So we use a more sophisticated suite of tech there to ensure that the uploader of the content is who they are, who they say they are and they meet all of that rigs.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. It's the technology is just incredible on how it's developing.

Speaker 1 (20m 30s): Sounds like it, it sounds like it. So what exactly do you do in your position,

Speaker 2 (20m 35s): Bruce? We just, well, for me, it's just about ready safeguarding a company's revenue. That that's my core business goal. So we work or I work with many businesses who, who may not be compliant in, in different forms. Right. They may, they may do some things associated to, for example, 2 25, 7, and there might be others that think that they are doing all the right things. And, and my core function really is to work with those businesses, solve those issues, but in doing so, it's very much for us about building a long term partnership.

You know, we, we don't see ourselves as, as a supplier of technology. We are not a supplier. We are a partner. So, and that for me has a very long reaching description from, you know, we help, if we need to lobby governments, we help lobby for example, MasterCard. And we try to pull everything we can out of those organizations. So we can help the businesses we work with understand what's actually required. Cause often the regulator will say something, no one knows what it means though.

And we, we then have to come back and try, they have their own language. What exactly. Yeah. What exactly are they referring to here? Because we don't get it.

Speaker 1 (21m 58s): I love it. So what, what motivates you to do what you do for your clients?

Speaker 2 (22m 5s): I think it's that I love solving those problems. You know, Bruce often, often businesses will look at regulation as a massive barrier to doing business. Yes. And almost, almost off putting to a certain extent. And I think when myself and my team, you know, lift the hood and we get in there and we can show businesses that it's not as scary or as interrupting as what they think it's going to be, we can help them thrive.

And, and that's what motivates us.

Speaker 1 (22m 37s): Nice. So let's talk more about the verify, my content product. So that's the new one. How did that come about?

Speaker 2 (22m 46s): So I mean, this for me is a very, very exciting product and development. So as we were touching on earlier age verification has its place in the marketplace. We, we see it, we see it developing at different speeds across the globe. So we, we have it in France at the minute and we know Germany or putting in play. And the, and the UK dare say have come out again, say in 20, 23, they're gonna implement it.

Speaker 1 (23m 17s): We'll

Speaker 2 (23m 20s): What we know now is the fact that MasterCard came out with a change to, to their rules means that it's having an impact on porn sites today and something needs to be done today. And absolutely we, so, so we developed the very far my age product to allow us to provide adult entertainment businesses with a one API that satisfies all of those requirements for MasterCard.

Our, our focus was about saying to these businesses, don't be afraid of this regulation it's to stay first and foremost. So we have a very simple means for you to get on the right side of this regulation. And if, and you know, if they, if they don't, we, we have another scenario like we had with some of the other large sites that were shut off and we see that just going to continue unless something real can get done about

Speaker 1 (24m 23s): Sadly. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (24m 24s): The, yeah. The requirements that, that MasterCard are setting out.

Speaker 1 (24m 27s): Yeah. So tell me more about verify my content and how is it beneficial for both content creators and the platforms?

Speaker 2 (24m 37s): Sure. So I think above all the verify, my content product is about having peace of mind, both from a, a merchant, a site that's allowing content to be uploaded as well as your content creator. Who's the entrepreneur, the business owner very far. My content is designed to ensure that the content is been uploaded by a verified individual. We do that by using AI to check ID documents, to make sure that they are real ID documents.

And we then use AI to cross-check a facial selfie or video against that document. Wow. We then go one step further and allow the content created to verify participants that they may have in their content. So all of those risks are therefore removed. You know, we, we, we help get rid of that, that I guess the risk of revenge porn or SP cams, because if those individuals are not verified, then the content can't be uploaded.

Right. And then what we also do is we moderate the content. So we will use our, our own development of, of AI algorithms to ensure that the content itself meets all the requirements. So there's no children involved in it. And if there is, you know, we, we flag that for someone to look at. So we've got a human moderator who will also look at that and go, Nope, that's fine. We can let it go. And, and all of this is then wrapped up with a very sophisticated reporting tool.

So if MasterCard or an acquiring bank came to a merchant and said, right, we've got a report of, of child pornography on your site, how did that get, how did it get through the barriers? They were able to run a report and show exactly what has taken place

Speaker 1 (26m 34s): Interesting.

Speaker 2 (26m 35s): And, and all of this too, is backed up with our own very unique form of insurance, which also helps bring a bit more credibility and that piece of mind to, to content creators.

Speaker 1 (26m 49s): Yeah. And MasterCard knows you, right. You guys have worked with them in delivering all this, right.

Speaker 2 (26m 54s): Absolutely. Yeah. So they've been fantastic in giving us real life feedback. You know, we, we went off and built our first version of this and, and the guys had MasterCard actually openly said, you've gone too far. You don't have to do what you've just suggested by that's that's overkill. So we, we thought, so we were like, that's fantastic. Let's build back a bit. Yeah. Which, which we've done, but what we also know, you know, when you look at history and you look at regulation, it's only going to develop and get more regulated.

Yeah. So we understand that. So, so we've built certain, I guess, points within our technology that allows us to extend the type of, of, of, I guess, verification that we're currently doing. But when, when you think very far more content, Bruce, we look at really three things. It's, it's one ID verification, number two, participant verification, number three, content moderation all under one roof. So when you look at many providers today, they have to pull those resources from different places.

Right. Right. And what we are offering is, is, is essentially a one stop shop. That's got everything for you.

Speaker 1 (28m 8s): So what you're saying is that when the Mo when the regulators decide, they're going to put more rules on, you can ramp your solution back up to where it was when they said you overdid it.

Speaker 2 (28m 21s): Yes, exactly. That, wow. That's awesome. Exactly. That awesome.

Speaker 1 (28m 24s): Yeah. And they will, and they will

Speaker 2 (28m 27s): Instead. Oh, yes.

Speaker 1 (28m 28s): Yeah. The one thing I can always count on is more regulation around the corner. No two ways about it. Now aren't many of these MasterCard requirements already covered by 2, 2, 5, 7.

Speaker 2 (28m 39s): I think they are. I think what we see is I guess, a change in the type of content that gets uploaded, which 2, 2, 5, 7 may not necessarily bring under it's umbrella, but I do think you're right. I think if all websites adhere to 2, 2, 2, 2, 5, 7 regs, right? Then you, you would be able to tick a box, but, but let me give you some quick stats on this. So in fact, in fact, what, what we see at the minute, if you look at your fan sites or your user generated content sites and, and the absolute ease of anyone setting up an accountant, turning on their phone and recording a form of, of sexual or explicit content, right.

That can upload it with ease. No problem. 2, 2, 5, 7, doesn't even seem to, to, to, to come into play because that's what's happening today. So when you look at your, your, your fan sites or your live cam sites or your pay sites, that's what we see, but has some, has some quick stats for you that I can't tell you where these have come from just yet. Cuz we, we put in a paper together on this, but interesting. We took, we took the top 40 adult entertainment sites that are out there. And we did a cross section from tube sites to cam sites to fan and, and fan sites.

And this, this is why our product is so needed because the other stats, 85% of those sites accepted a form of fraudulent ID. Oh yes. Okay. ID which anyone who looked at it would go, that's not a real ID document. Okay. 74% allowed for illegal content and illegal content. Bruce for me is videos with children in it, not necessarily sexual sexually active children or any form of nudity, but children.

Right? Oh geez. And then 88% of these sites have never responded to a report of abuse or a complaint. Wow. Nothing's happened.

Speaker 1 (30m 41s): Can I ask, can I ask you a question? I mean, how, how did you get all this information? I mean, I doubt the sites are telling you are showing you their IDs.

Speaker 2 (30m 52s): So a lot of this work and effort was done through actual market research. So actual testing, so real live people, setting up accounts, loading these documents, got it. Going through, going through the actual experience that a, a user would take or go through.

Speaker 1 (31m 10s): Interesting. Interesting.

Speaker 2 (31m 12s): So it's, it's so it's key. It's key. And, and, and, and it's this type of research, it's this type of concerns that needs to be plugged now, all, all of these sites we obviously speaking with and we're gonna be discussing things with them. Right. But if all of them deployed a single solution like ours, all of that goes to zero.

Speaker 1 (31m 34s): Yeah. Yeah. Well what a can of worms that is though my God, that's just, yes. That's just frigging crazy interesting when that gets released. So why do you think it's important for adult sites to select the right partner when it comes to compliance?

Speaker 2 (31m 51s): Yeah. I think this is critical, you know, Bruce, because the reputation of the site, the financial security of that site is in the hands of that partner. So yep. If you take a, you take our product. For example, if, if we use inferior technology, we will be declining more people that are trying to sign up to that site. So choosing the wrong partner is gonna have a massive impact on that. So, and I mentioned this earlier, the, the whole point of a partnership is that it's not a supplier led partnership.

It is a joint partnership to succeed. So, you know, if I can produce a technology that that's at its peak, that's doing everything it needs to do. That doesn't mean it will approve everyone. If it fails someone it's doing it for a reason.

Speaker 1 (32m 41s): That's like, like credit cards, like credit cards, you, you exactly. Yeah. You reject, you know, the, your PSPS reject people normally because of fraud.

Speaker 2 (32m 51s): Yeah. And, and that's, and that's a perfect actually example, Bruce, what we do here is getting rid of those, those guys, those firms, those companies, those content creators that are going to have a negative impact on the business. We are there to step in and get rid of those guys so that the business can, that's awesome. Continue to develop.

Speaker 1 (33m 11s): That's completely awesome. So now we agree more regulations coming. You said it, I said it, it's not hard to figure out where do you think it'll be focused?

Speaker 2 (33m 20s): Well, you know, I think, I think probably at the moment, it kind of, you kind of get the sense that it's the, the payment providers that are becoming our defacto global regulators. You know, the, the threat of payment restrictions is gonna hurt people unless they sort sort out their businesses reputation's critical. So any illegal content is gonna be a problem. AV age verification for users. There's no doubt that's coming. No doubt at all. Sure, sure. But I also have a very strong suspicion, Bruce, there'll be more regulation around live cams and live streaming.

I think that is. And that's, that's a good,

Speaker 1 (34m 1s): Do you know this? Do you know this for a fact?

Speaker 2 (34m 3s): No, not, no. I just think it's a more, a very strong gut feeling of, of how from our own market research where we see quite a few gaps.

Speaker 1 (34m 14s): Yeah.

Speaker 2 (34m 14s): We, we, we think potentially that could be an area that that could be focused on, but I think the, the next big disruption around regulation will definitely be end of this year, potentially start of next year with, with age verification for users.

Speaker 1 (34m 32s): Oh, there's no two, no two ways around that.

Speaker 2 (34m 33s): And you know, that doesn't have to be too much of a worry for sites because it, it should be equitable that by that stage, you know, Bruce can be just the top five sites who, who the friendship selected to, to ban, right. And then, and everyone else continue as, as you want. Right. I think we get into a position where everyone's gonna be in a level playing field. And if that's the case, there's technology out there to help them

Speaker 1 (35m 0s): Look. If they, if somebody's breaking the rules, if somebody's one of the bad guys, I, I have no problem taking them offline. I, I think it's great. I think if somebody's showing kids, I, I think if, if somebody's letting kids look at porn and, and the governments get wind of it, get rid of them, agree with that. Yep.

Speaker 2 (35m 21s): And

Speaker 1 (35m 21s): Completely,

Speaker 2 (35m 22s): I think, and I think 99% of everyone in this industry believes and, and, and believes that's the right thing to do as well. Sure. Which is why it's just about catching those, let's call it the 1% that are, are buggering things up for everyone else.

Speaker 1 (35m 39s): Yeah. But why do you have such a, such a strong suspicion about cams and what's your, your gut tell you that's gonna happen?

Speaker 2 (35m 47s): And to be clear, this is a personal gut feeling of mine. We

Speaker 1 (35m 51s): Get, I

Speaker 2 (35m 52s): Get that. Good. Good. I just think it is very easy to go onto a live cam broadcast with, with very little moderation attached to it. I do think part of the MasterCard rules are trying to plug that gap by ensuring merchants have access to the site to right, to stop the broadcast as well as to put some form of AI in place to, to monitor the feeds. I think it's a complicated challenge because there are so many facets attached to it from different forms of technology to what are the, the different rules for different cam sites.

You know, other words, who can be on camera, who cannot, I guess that's one of the biggest challenges today as well. You know, Bruce is you have cam model setting up accounts, 99.9% are doing everything they should be doing. But then you have a small percentage where the, the cam model on camera is, is not actually the account holder who set up the account. So if they were verified before, that's not the person that's actually behind the camera, it's very true. And, and it's that risk for the business that gets them shut down.

Huge. So, and, and again, it's that small percentage that are, are just, and then you ask the question, why is that happening? Who's doing that, or what are the reasons for it? And so are you,

Speaker 1 (37m 17s): Are you, are you suggesting that at a certain point, there's gonna be regulation. That's gonna require a, the cam model to be verified every time they go on cam.

Speaker 2 (37m 28s): Sure, absolutely. Yeah. Wow. And, and, and we, and we, and we have this tech already, so that's huge. So if you consider, if you were a cam model, if you're a care model, Bruce, and yeah. You're about to, and you were about to start your broadcast, you're obviously staring into your camera, right? Yes. Our technology effortlessly will be able to go, yes, that's Bruce. Let the broadcast continue within seconds.

Speaker 1 (37m 55s): Yeah. You meant within, right.

Speaker 2 (37m 57s): So

Speaker 1 (37m 58s): It'll be a boom for you guys for sure.

Speaker 2 (38m 1s): And I, and I think it's, it's a good safeguard for the

Speaker 1 (38m 4s): Industry. Are you selling stock,

Speaker 2 (38m 8s): Jump in Bruce, jump in.

Speaker 1 (38m 10s): I shall, I shall. How do you think regulation and compliance has already impacted the industry

Speaker 2 (38m 18s): To be fair? You know, I think a lot of that has removed a lot of the unscrupulous. No doubt. I think there's, there's the more sophisticated individual who will find his way around all of these checks. If they, if they held bent on, on doing it, they will. Yeah. I think, I think if anything, the regulation is focused the minds more in this industry on compliance. So those sites that are doing all the right things have had to up their a bit more to do more compliant.

And I think that's frustrating for them, but I do believe as many do that regulation can only and regulation with the right guidance. And that's the key thing I want to get across Bruce. It's all very well coming out with regulation or changing standards, but further guidance is required for everyone to understand what that means. And we're seeing that coming through. Now, a lot of it due to my team's work with MasterCard and regulators, to understand what exactly is required.

And I think regulation and compliance can only have a positive impact on the business. I think what it will do is ensure those who are focused on growing their businesses will thrive. And those that are, are trying to do the things they shouldn't be doing are gonna be knocked out all together.

Speaker 1 (39m 42s): That's awesome. Yeah. And let's face it. Okay. In any situation, people who break the rules hurt the people who follow the rules.

Speaker 2 (39m 51s): Absolutely. Absolutely. In any, and that's in any you're right. That's in any sector that's in any business. Yep.

Speaker 1 (39m 59s): Yep. That's

Speaker 2 (39m 60s): Life.

Speaker 1 (40m 0s): That's life. My friend that's in life.

Speaker 2 (40m 3s): Exactly. I say to my son, when you had a very tough rugby match on the weekend and in rugby, I guess any sport, you always try to press the rules to the limit to see what you can get away with.

Speaker 1 (40m 15s): Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (40m 15s): And, and as I, I gave my son a bit of a lesson in risk management and I said, well, if you're gonna, if, if you're gonna take that approach close to your goal line, consider the risk. The risk will be, you get caught and they end up scoring against you and you go down. Yeah. If you're gonna, if you're gonna do that, you either gotta be really good at it. So you never get caught or accept the fact that if you're gonna do it, there's a consequence.

Speaker 1 (40m 41s): Always, always consequences in life. My friend, there are always consequences. Well, Hey, Gavin, I like to thank you for being our guest today on adult slate, broker talk. And I know down the road, we'll have more to talk about.

Speaker 2 (40m 55s): Absolutely. Bruce, thank you for having me much appreciated.

Speaker 1 (40m 58s): Thank you. My broker tip today is part six of how to buy an adult website. Last week, we talked about the sales agreement. So now both you and the seller have signed an agreement. What comes next? There needs to be an escrow setup where you send the money, whether it be a one-time payment or a deposit, if you're gonna be making payments, the seller for their part puts the assets of the sale into escrow, namely the domains being sold and any other tangible assets that can be put into escrow.

Your attorney can give you more information on that. We recommend escrow domains for escrows. They're a firm out of Washington, DC, and no, they're not paying me to say this. I just use them. Trust them and am delighted by the work they've done for us. Either an escrow agreement will be drawn up by them in the case of a custom escrow, or if it's a simple one, it can be set up on their website. Then you, the buyer, the seller and the broker will be contacted by escrow domains with further instructions, such as wiring information, the escrow is opened and either the deal closes within a matter of a few days or an inspection period is allowed.

It all depends on what the agreement calls for, whether you need an inspection period really depends on whether there's still some information you need to find out prior to the deal being closed. Your broker and your attorney can advise you more on this. And it's on a case by case basis. Then the money is transferred as are the domains and the deal is closed. Now in many cases, in fact, most of the time, the seller either stays on board for a period of time to help with a transition, or is at least available on an on-call basis to answer questions.

This is something most buyers should ask for, but at this point, you pretty much own the website. What do you do now? We'll talk about this subject more next week and next week we'll be speaking with Michael Ramos of ASN entertainment. And that's it for this week's Adult Site Broker Talk. I'd once again like to thank my guest Gavin Worrall. Talk to you again next week on adult site broker talk. I'm Bruce Friedman.