Complying with orders from the Department of Telecom (DoT), internet service licensees last year restricted approximately 857 porn websites in India terming their content "immoral and indecent."
However, within months of the ban, two major porn sites – RedTube and PornHub became operational in India.
According to an NDTV news website report, both the websites allow users to tweak the domains and access content.
A domain name is an identification string that defines the administrative autonomy, authority or control within the Internet.
The crackdown only implies on .com domain names. Escaping its consequences, Pornhub and RedTube are available with the domains .org and .net in India.
While .org is largely used by non-profit organisations, .net domain name extension represents "network" - recommended and suitable for internet, e-mail, and networking service providers, the report explained.
Since the crackdown is on .com domain names, porn websites are easily being accessed on various screens, without any virtual private network (VPN), alternative browsers, proxies or other methods to access the blocked websites.
Previously, VPNs were being actively used to get into banned porn websites.
VPNs enable users to access the blocked sites by masking their location.
In India, Google searches for “VPN” boomed right after the ban was enforced in October last year, and have remained higher than usual ever since.
Citing an analysis released by PornHub in December last year, India ranked number three in terms of porn consumption.
Around 44 percent of the total PornHub visitors in India were aged between 18 and 24, 41 percent of them were aged between 25 and 34.
The average age for Indians exploring the world of porn in 2018 was 29.
However, following the Department of Telecom's directive, major telecom operators in the country like Jio, Airtel and Vodafone also banned websites showing porn and child pornographic content.
