Top adult video platform Pornhub announced on Thursday that it would switch to Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure protocol (HTTPS). The change would make the experience of users of the porn website more secure.
Target of Hackers
Porn sites have been focusing on their security because these websites are often the target of hackers. If their data, such as visitors’ personal information would be exposed, it could be embarrassing for porn lovers, Mashable reported. To avert such a scenario, including internet service providers selling the browsing histories of porn website visitors to third parties, Pornhub and YouPorn would shift to HTTPS protocol on April 4.
The two adult websites have one parent company.
The shift to HTTPS protocol is part of the company’s concerted effort to maximize users’ privacy and to ensure that what visitors do on the Pornhub platform would remain strictly confidential, Corey Price, the vice president of Pornhub, said in a statement. The switch would protect the identity of visitors and safeguard the adult portal’s exposure to third parties’ malware.
Google pressures website to shift to HTTPS
Google has been pressuring websites to change to a secure protocol as part of an industry-wide push for more secure connections. Part of the pressure is sites would be branded as not secure in the URL window in the latest Chrome release.
To stress the importance of using a secure protocol, Emily Schechter, the product manager of Google for Chrome security, said at the USENIX Enigma cyber security in Oakland, California, the HTTPS is an encryption format. The protocol is designed to keep password information and credit card data when entered onto a website. If sensitive information is transmitted on portals with HTTP platform only, the data could be more vulnerable to theft or unwanted monitoring.
What websites are on Google’s Transparency Report?
Over the last 12 months, 54 of the top 100 websites do not support the HTTPS protocol, Schechter said at the gathering of cyber security professionals. The Transparency Report that Google published identified CNN and eBay as among the top 100 websites still using the HTTP protocol.
Price clarified that when Pornhub enables the HTTPS protocol on April 4, it will not stop the user’s ISP from knowing that he or she visited Pornhub. However, the secure protocol would prevent the ISP from seeing what kind of content was consumed. Pornhub has a wide variety of adult movie categories such as lesbian, hentai, mature, threesome, anal, gay, bondage and cartoon.
