Thirty-four women, including one Canadian, filed a civil suit in a U.S. district court in California, saying the Montreal-founded technology company had posted private or non-consensual videos of them on sites including its flagship site Pornhub. Among the defendants is Visa, which the lawsuit says aided “the MindGeek Criminal Enterprise” by “engineering and facilitating credit card and financial transactions to siphon off illicit profits and avoid credit card red flags.” Asked for comment, Pornhub would only provide a statement via what a company executive has admitted is a false identity. Visa Canada didn’t respond to a request for comment. (The Logic)

Talking point: The suit describes MindGeek as a mafia-like organization that carries out an array of criminal activities, including “human trafficking; child pornography; criminal copyright piracy; internet hacking, stalking, and doxing; blackmail and extortion; mail and wire fraud; embezzlement, bank and creditor fraud; tax evasion; and money laundering.” It quotes an unnamed whistleblower who said MindGeek CEO Feras Antoon and COO David Tassillo lied to a House of Commons committee when they said that all videos on MindGeek’s properties were vetted prior to publication.