Caution: Enforcement Loading! Ofcom continues its campaign against non-compliant adult content sites

On 14 May 2025, Ofcom announced that it has launched two further investigations for potential violations under the OSA. This time, the OSA regulator is investigating Kick Online Entertainment S.A (‘Kick’), which runs adult content provider Motherless.com. This comes hot on the heels of its press release just days before to investigate another two adult content providers, Itai Tech Ltd and Score Internet Group LLC (see our post on that investigation here).

So what caught Ofcom’s attention? As part of its enforcement programme, Ofcom had issued Kick with an information request to provide it with a record of its illegal content risk assessment, so that Ofcom could assess whether Kick was complying with its duties under the OSA. As a reminder, in-scope providers were required to complete their first illegal content risk assessments by 16 March 2025 and Ofcom now has the right to review these assessments. Kick failed to respond to Ofcom’s information request, leading to the regulator opening a new investigation into:

1. whether Kick maintains a suitable and sufficient illegal content risk assessment; and 
2. why Kick did not respond to a statutory information request. 

The investigation may come as no surprise to those tracking the OSA, as Ofcom appears to be focusing much of its online safety enforcement efforts on adult content providers - including notably - imposing a £1.05 million fine on OnlyFans under the old VSP Regime back in March 2025 (see our post on the fine here). In relation to Kick, Ofcom noted that its concerns about Motherless were piqued, having received complaints from users about “child sexual abuse material and extreme pornography” apparently available on the site. These complaints suggest that the public may be increasingly aware of Ofcom’s central role in combatting illegal and harmful content online. 

Another interesting parallel between this investigation and the OnlyFans fine is that both investigations consider whether the provider in question had adequately responded to information requests from Ofcom. The OnlyFans fine partly revolved around the provider’s failure to provide accurate and timely responses in relation to age-assurance related information requests. This highlights the importance of businesses taking RFIs seriously and ensuring they are well-advised when responding to Ofcom under the OSA.

Ofcom are now gathering and analysing evidence from Kick, and we will be tracking the investigation closely. While Ofcom’s specific enforcement actions in this case are not yet known, what is clear is that Ofcom is serious about fully wielding its enforcement powers. For more on Ofcom’s specific powers, check out our enforcement page, which you can find on our dedicated OSA hub, The Safety Net.