Open
The provider of www.xgroovy.com
10 September 2025
We are investigating whether the provider of www.xgroovy.com (‘Xgroovy’) has failed, or is failing, to comply with its duties under the Online Safety Act 2023 to prevent children from encountering pornographic content on its services through the use of highly effective age assurance.
We are also investigating whether Xgroovy has failed, or is failing, to comply with its duty to respond accurately to an information notice sent under the Act.
Sections 12 and 102(8) of the Online Safety Act 2023
Following an investigation, Ofcom has provisionally determined that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the provider of Xgroovy.com (‘Xgroovy’) has failed to comply with section 12 of the Online Safety Act 2023 (‘the Act’).
Section 12 imposes a duty on providers of Part 3 services that allow pornographic content, and that are likely to be accessed by children, to ensure that children are prevented from encountering pornographic content through the use of highly effective age assurance.
Ofcom therefore issued a provisional notice of contravention to Xgroovy on 16 June 2026 under section 130 of the Act.
The notice also sets out our provisional view that Xgroovy has infringed its duties under section 102(8) of the Act by failing to respond to a statutory request for information issued as part of the investigation.
The notice sets out the facts that Ofcom has relied upon to reach its provisional view, the actions we propose to take, and the rationale for those decisions. Xgroovy will now have a period of 20 working days to make representations to Ofcom, which will be carefully considered before reaching a final decision.
On 19 November 2025, Ofcom expanded the scope of our investigation into the provider of www.xgroovy.com (`Xgroovy’), to include consideration of whether Xgroovy had failed to comply with the requirements of an information notice issued on 23 September 2025.
Following correspondence with Xgroovy, Ofcom did not proceed at that time with the expanded scope.
On 30 March 2026, Ofcom reissued the formal information notice to Xgroovy under section 100 of the Act, using updated contact details provided by Xgroovy. Xgroovy was required to respond to that notice by the deadline specified in the notice, but did not do so. As at the time of this announcement, Xgroovy has not provided a response to that information notice.
Ofcom has therefore expanded the scope of this investigation to include consideration of whether Xgroovy has failed, or is failing to comply with the requirements of the information notice reissued on 30 March under the Act.
On 23 September 2025, Ofcom issued a formal information notice to the provider of www.xgroovy.com (‘Xgroovy’) under section 100 of the Online Safety Act. As at the date of this announcement, we have not received a response to the information notice. Ofcom has therefore now expanded this investigation to include considering whether Xgroovy has failed, or is failing, to comply with its duty to respond accurately to an information notice sent under the Act.
On 10 September 2025, under our enforcement programme to protect children from encountering pornographic content through the use of age assurance, we opened an investigation into the provider of www.xgroovy.com.
Ofcom’s investigation will examine whether there are reasonable grounds to believe that the provider has failed, or is failing, to comply with its duties under section 12 of the Act, to prevent children from encountering pornographic content through the use of highly effective age assurance. These duties have applied since 25 July 2025.
Ofcom’s Online Safety Enforcement Guidance sets out how Ofcom will normally approach enforcement under the Act. This includes our approach to information gathering and analysis and the procedural steps we must take to fairly determine the outcome of the investigation.
We will provide an update on the investigation in due course.
CW/01318/09/25