YouPorn’s new Private Sign In feature lets users create anonymous accounts

Adult entertainment giant YouPorn is introducing a new feature called Private Sign In, which allows users to enjoy the benefits of a signed-in experience without having to register any personal information.

While users can already access myriad online adult entertainment hubs without registering, they are unable to access key functionality, such as personalized recommendations and the ability to “favorite” specific videos, create watchlists or collections, and so on — much like on YouTube. With Private Sign In, YouPorn users can effectively create an account without having to divulge personal details or set up a disposable email address.

“Prioritizing our users’ security and privacy, we decided the best way to solve this problem is with a new feature we’re calling Private Sign In, enabling our users to create an account without entering any personally identifiable information, except for what is absolutely necessary,” said YouPorn VP Charlie Hughes.

To access Private Sign In, a user clicks on the button on the register screen that says “Launch Private Experience.”

Above: YouPorn: Creating an account

YouPorn then gives them a 12-digit “private recovery” code that they must save somewhere, either with a screenshot or by copying and pasting it into a separate note app. This is the code they’ll need to use if they ever want to log into their account on a new device.

Above: YouPorn: Get your access code (concealed here)

On the surface, this new feature appears to make the official registration process redundant — after all, why would you bother creating a regular YouPorn account if Private Sign In offers similar functionality? Well, there is one activity you can’t do with Private Sign In — upload videos.

Privacy porn

With around 1 billion video views per month, YouPorn is among the most-visited pornography websites in the world — and one of the most-visited websites overall, according to Alexa data.

Due to the countless high-profile data breaches and industrial-scale data-harvesting debacles that have hit the headlines in recent years, online privacy awareness has grown across the board. However, people have always tended to be more cautious with their porn-browsing activities, given the heightened social stigma involved, which is why many of the major players in the space have been working on privacy-focused tools in recent years.

Last year, for example, Pornhub launched its own virtual private network (VPN) app to help its users mask their location and identity. And earlier this year YouPorn launched new “progressive” web apps for Android and iOS, ushering in a native-like experience without requiring users to physically install an app. One of the benefits of this new mobile web app is that it doesn’t store the user’s search and browsing history by default — there is no need to open an incognito window.

With the introduction of Private Sign In, YouPorn is very much continuing on a similar trajectory — it wants to hook new users in without asking them to enter any personal details.

“The apprehension with entering an email address, name, or even a password as part of the sign-up process is preventing hundreds of millions of users from signing in, and as a result they are not able to take advantage of all of the experiences that we work so hard to offer on our platform,” Hughes said.