RubberZone Latest Gay Site to Fall Victim to Age Verification Laws

RubberZone Falls Victim to Age Verification Laws

For almost three decades, the adult site RubberZone has been the fusion place for men into rubber fetish, gay latex fetish, bondage in rubber, and other rubber men. Their popular site is a multimedia meeting place with personals, profiles, galleries, videos, and shopping. In an important announcement sent to Fleshbot this week, they announced that they have fallen victim to the burgeoning state restrictions on adult sites due to adopted age verification laws. In addition to age verification laws, their site is suffering financial and policy burdens implemented by credit card services. As a small business site, this affects them greatly.

Pics courtesy of RubberZone on X.

As we've reported, a number of states of mandated that adult sites incorporate an age verification system to prove a user's age. This is meant to protect minorities from accessing adult material and often requires the upload of a government ID, which many claim invades privacy and increases fraud potential. Age verification, which usually utilizes third parties, comes at a high cost to websites. Fines can be up to $10,000 per violation, with criminal penalties in some states.

As soon as this month, RubberZonee will have to prohibit users from Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Virginia from using their site. In addition, the following states will be restricted depending on their new law rollouts: Alabama (October 1, 2024), Georgia  (July 1, 2024), Idaho (July 1, 2024), Indiana (July 1, 2024), Kansas (July 1, 2024), Kentucky (July 14, 2024), Nebraska (July 18, 2024), Oklahoma (November 1, 2024), and Florida (January 1, 2025).

In addition to their announcement, RubberZone also touched on the restrictions of credit card companies due to the pressure of anti-adult site groups on doing any business with any site that has adult, or hints at adult, content. Currently, the site must maintain an exorbitant amount in reserve with their credit card processor to guard against any complaints, much higher than any of their transaction amounts. Also, they must pay 3x the transaction fees than other businesses, and pay a high fee each year for "monitoring." If such restrictions continue (their fees have gone up every year), they will have to stop taking credit cards. They are actually looking into using cryptocurrency. They will need to greatly increase their membership subscriptions to survive. They plan on fighting till the end.

RubberZone has become a safe place for men of all walks of life to talk freely about their fetishes and share fellowship and education, no matter if they are in the smallest town in the US. These restrictions are really hitting the smaller market as costs for dealing with policies and restrictions just don't outweigh the costs of running a site. They are encouraging members of the restricting states to reach out to their legislators, or if you are in a state that is not restricted, to reach out to your legislators to prevent such laws from spreading.

Check out RubberZone on X to sample their content.

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