The sale of Scarlet Blue and its ties with Eros.com
Recently one of Australia's biggest directories, Scarlet Blue, was sold to a company (AA Media GmbH) that has strong ties to Eros.com, as well as Rubmaps, Erotic Monkey and The Erotic Review, which in the Wall Street Journal has reported are under investigation by the U.S Department of Justice. Click here for the analysis.
Eros has a terrible reputation in the community for their total disregard for sex workers. In 2017, Eros.com were raided by Homeland Security. As a result of the raid they were compelled to hand over user data, including, but not limited to images, financial information, sexual preferences, gender identity etc. After the raids, there have been multiple cases of sex workers being banned or refused entry into the US and workers being outed. This is an obvious threat to our job security, our personal safety, as well as our ability to access mainstream services.
As pointed out by Sienna Charles, Scarlet Blue also have some worrying sections in their Terms of Service, such as the below:
I know that it is not possible for some people to make the switch to other platforms right now, but you can help by spreading the word and reduce their monopoly over the market.
These are some ways you can help:
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List yourself on alternative sites for free
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Remove links to Scarlet Blue from your website and forums
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Tell your clients and other workers about other sites that can be used as an alternative.
Providers have the power to change this.
Alternatives to Scarlet Blue:
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Tryst.link - I co-founded this site and am a current sex worker, free to list and good with international clients
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Available Angels - Sex worker run, offering christmas discounts
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Escorts and Babes - Expensive but ranks highly in Google
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Jake Ryan Escorts - Sex worker run, unsure on price
I have rushed this analysis out, so if anyone has any sites they would like added, I would be happy to add them in.
Analysis of the sale
This was first brought to people's attention by Cora Livingston on Twitter. chendo, one of my cofounders at Assembly Four did his own analysis which I've included below.
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Scarlet Blue was owned by Matter and Ghosts, an Australian entity, however at some point between November 30th, 2019 and December 9th, the copyright notice at the bottom of the website changed to reflect AA Media GmbH. Please see the below link to the wayback archive and a comparison of the copyright notice in the page footer
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AA Media GmbH used to be managed by Pascal Flamur Musaj, who is currently listed as the owner of MPF Media Services GmbH, which is the current listed operator of Eros. MPF Media Services GmbH were running Eros when the raids occurred. The raids were on June 9th, says MPF Media Services GmbH
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https://web.archive.org/web/20160609204356/http://www.eros.com:80/
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The current listed owner (Patrik Mueller) of AA Media is also listed as management on Birdview Mobile AG, which was only very recently (Nov 28, 2019) transferred to him which we can assume could be related the Scarlet Blue sale
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The more interesting bit of information is that one of the people listed as a former member of management of Birdview Mobile AG is David Azzato. In September 2019 the Wall Street Journal reported Azzato was being investigated by the US Department of Homeland Security for his alleged ties to Rubmaps, Erotic Monkey and Eros. Mr Azzato's spokesman told the Wall Street Journal at the time that Azzato had previous ties to Rubmaps and Eros, but did not currently own or operate any adult websites in the United States
If anyone has any further information on this, please feel free to reach out so I can continue the story via lolahunt@protonmail.com