TOPEKA, Kan.—Kris Kobach, the Republican attorney general of the U.S. state of Kansas, sued the parent company of several adult paysites in a state court, alleging failures to comply with local age verification requirements, reports Kansas Reflector.
SARJ LLC., a foreign-owned information technology company with a base of operations in Seattle, Wash., was named in the lawsuit for not employing "any manner of age-gating technology, resulting in its websites remaining freely open and accessible to anyone” who navigated to the firm’s owned websites from the Kansas digital space.
SARJ owns paysites like Metart.com, TheLifeErotic.com, VivThomas.com, Domai.com, and nine others that are part of the Metart Network. These websites are all named in the complaint Kobach’s office filed with a judge at the district court in Shawnee County, which includes Topeka, the state capital, and surrounding communities.
“Protecting our children against the harmful effects of pornography is a high priority for all Kansans,” Kobach said in a press statement he posted to his followers on X.
“This law is making a difference," he added. In that same press statement, Kobach said that SARJ is being fined $10,000 per violation per day. An accounting of the amount of money SARJ and its platforms could owe the state of Kansas if found liable in court by the Topeka Capital-Journal could easily exceed $50 million. The immediate complaint against the paysites is similar to complaints filed in Texas by Attorney General Ken Paxton against the parent companies of Pornhub.com and Chaturbate.com.
Kobach’s complaint was also filed at a time when age verification was a key topic in the news, given the Jan. 15 oral arguments of Free Speech Coalition et al. v. Paxton at the U.S. Supreme Court.
AVN reached out to a Metart Network and SARJ spokesperson for comment, but no response was provided.
The Free Speech Coalition, a trade group representing the adult industry, also didn’t offer comment.
