FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

JANE DOE, on behalf of herself and 

all others similarly situated, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

 v. 

WEBGROUP CZECH REPUBLIC, 

A.S.; WGCZ HOLDING, A.S.; 

WGCZ LIMITED, S.R.O.; NKL 

ASSOCIATES, S.R.O.; TRAFFIC F, 

S.R.O.; GTFLIX TV, S.R.O.; FTCP, 

S.R.O.; VS MEDIA, INC.; HC 

MEDIA, S.R.O.; HC MULTIMEDIA 

LLC; FBP MEDIA, S.R.O.; 

STEPHANE MICHAEL PACAUD; 

DEBORAH MALORIE PACAUD; 

SERVERSTACK, INC.; DIGITAL 

OCEAN HOLDINGS, INC.; 

DIGITAL OCEAN, LLC, FKA Digital 

Ocean, Inc., 

Defendants-Appellees.

No. 22-55315 

D.C. No. 2:21-cv02428-VAP-SK 

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Central District of California

Virginia A. Phillips, District Judge, Presiding
2 DOE V. WEBGROUP CZECH REPUBLIC, A.S. 

Argued and Submitted December 9, 2022 

Pasadena, California

Filed January 2, 2024 

Before: Milan D. Smith, Jr., Daniel P. Collins, and 

Kenneth K. Lee, Circuit Judges. 

Opinion by Judge Collins; 

Concurrence by Judge Lee 

SUMMARY*

Personal Jurisdiction

The panel reversed in part and vacated in part the district 

court’s dismissal, for lack of personal jurisdiction, of claims 

asserted against 11 foreign-based defendants in a putative 

class action alleging that defendants violated federal and 

California law by participating in, or benefitting from, the 

distribution of videos on the internet that depicted the sexual 

abuse of Plaintiff and of other victims of childhood-sextrafficking.

At least four of the videos depicting Plaintiff were 

uploaded to two pornography websites, which use English 

as their default language but are respectively operated by 

two related Czech entities, Defendants WebGroup Czech 

Republic, a.s. and NKL Associates, s.r.o. Both entities have 

their principal place of business in the Czech Republic, and 

* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has 

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.
DOE V. WEBGROUP CZECH REPUBLIC, A.S. 3

neither has offices, conducts business operations, or is 

registered to do business in the United States. Plaintiff filed 

this putative class action against WGCZ, NKL, and nine 

additional foreign defendants (collectively, the “Foreign 

Defendants”), and five U.S.-based defendants.

Plaintiff contended that personal jurisdiction over the 

Foreign Defendants is authorized by Federal Rule of Civil 

Procedure 4(k)(2). Whether personal jurisdiction exists 

under Rule 4(k)(2) turns on whether the requirements of the 

Due Process Clause are satisfied. Because Plaintiff did not 

contend that the Foreign Defendants’ contacts with the 

United States were sufficient to give rise to general 

jurisdiction, the sole potential basis for personal jurisdiction 

was specific jurisdiction over the particular matters at issue 

in this lawsuit.

The panel held that the district court erred in holding that 

it lacked specific personal jurisdiction against WGCZ and 

NKL under the requisite three-part due process test because 

(1) Plaintiff established a prima facie case that WGCZ and 

NKL purposefully directed their websites at the United 

States, (2) her claims seek redress for harms that arise from 

WGCZ’s and NKL’s forum-related activities in targeting 

their websites towards the U.S. market, and (3) WGCZ and 

NKL failed to make a compelling showing that the exercise 

of personal jurisdiction would be unreasonable.

The panel therefore reversed the district court’s 

dismissal of the action against WGCZ and NKL for lack of 

personal jurisdiction. Because the district court dismissed 

the remaining nine Foreign Defendants solely on the ground 

that there was no personal jurisdiction over WGCZ and 

NKL, the panel vacated the dismissal of those additional 

defendants. The panel instructed the district court to address 
4 DOE V. WEBGROUP CZECH REPUBLIC, A.S. 

on remand the remaining unresolved issues concerning 

whether personal jurisdiction may be asserted against those 

additional defendants. 

Concurring, Judge Lee wrote separately to state that it 

would have been prudent for the district court to have 

ordered very limited jurisdictional discovery here, which 

would have tethered the district court’s analysis more tightly 

onto this circuit’s personal jurisdiction framework.

COUNSEL

Mark B. Schoeller (argued), Kevin D. Kent, and Vanessa L. 

Huber, Clark Hill PLC, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Abbas 

Kazerounian and Mona Amini, Kazerouni Law Group APC, 

Costa Mesa, California; Benjamin W. Bull, Peter A. Gentala, 

and Dani B. Pinter, National Center on Sexual Exploitation, 

Washington, D.C.; Kimberly L. Adams, Levin Papantonio 

Rafferty Proctor Buchanan O'Brien Barr & Mougey PA, 

Pensacola, Florida; for Plaintiff-Appellant. 

Derek Shaffer (argued), Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & 

Sullivan LLP, Washington, D.C.; Michael T. Zeller, Michael 

E. Williams, Diane Cafferata, and Dylan C. Bonfigli, Quinn 

Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP, Los Angeles, California; 

Victor Hao-Jan Jih, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati 

Professional Corporation, Los Angeles, California; Brian M. 

Willen, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati Professional 

Corporation, New York, New York; for DefendantsAppellees.
DOE V. WEBGROUP CZECH REPUBLIC, A.S. 5

OPINION

COLLINS, Circuit Judge:

Plaintiff-Appellant, proceeding pseudonymously as 

“Jane Doe” (hereinafter, “Plaintiff”), brought this putative 

class action against numerous parties who allegedly violated 

federal and California law by participating in, or benefiting 

from, the distribution of videos on the internet that depicted 

the sexual abuse of Plaintiff and of other victims of 

childhood sex-trafficking. The district court dismissed all of 

the claims on various grounds, and on appeal Plaintiff 

challenges only the district court’s dismissal, for lack of 

personal jurisdiction, of the claims asserted against 11

foreign-based defendants. We reverse in part, vacate in part, 

and remand.

I

A

Because the district court did not hold an evidentiary 

hearing on the question of personal jurisdiction and instead 

held that Plaintiff had failed to establish a prima facie case 

for personal jurisdiction against the relevant defendants, the 

applicable standard of review requires us to take the 

“uncontroverted allegations” in Plaintiff’s complaint as true 

and to resolve any “conflicts between the facts contained in 

the parties’ affidavits” in Plaintiff’s favor. Rio Props., Inc. 

v. Rio Int’l Interlink, 284 F.3d 1007, 1019 (9th Cir. 2002). 

Applying those standards, we take the following facts as 

true.

Doe is a California resident and U.S. citizen who, at the 

age of 14, was a victim of sex trafficking in the United 

States. Specifically, while Plaintiff “was still a minor, a sex 
6 DOE V. WEBGROUP CZECH REPUBLIC, A.S.

trafficker forced [Plaintiff] to participate in the creation of 

videos of adults raping her.” At least four such videos were 

uploaded to the pornography websites XVideos.com and 

Xnxx.com, which are “video hosting website[s], where 

registered users can upload adult videos” and visitors “can 

view those videos for free without creating an account.” 

While they were hosted on these websites, the videos of 

Plaintiff’s abuse were viewed, shared, and downloaded

multiple times, with one video being viewed more than 

160,000 times. Plaintiff claims that, beginning in 2017, she 

contacted these two websites several times to ask them to 

take down these videos, but she received no response until 

her attorney sent a cease-and-desist letter in the fall of 2020.1 

After the cease-and-desist letter was received, the videos 

were taken down. 

Although both XVideos.com and Xnxx.com use English 

as their default language, the two websites are respectively 

operated by two related Czech entities, DefendantsAppellees WebGroup Czech Republic, a.s. (“WGCZ”) and

NKL Associates, s.r.o. (“NKL”). Both entities have their 

principal place of business in Prague, Czech Republic, and 

neither entity has offices, conducts business operations, or is 

registered to do business in the United States. As explained 

in a declaration provided by the person who serves as

“administrative director” for both WGCZ and NKL, 

Xnxx.com “is similar to xvideos.com, and it displays 

basically the same video content as xvideos.com but through 

a different interface.” XVideos.com and Xnxx.com are both 

hosted on servers located in the Netherlands that are 

operated by ServerStack, Inc. (“ServerStack”), a U.S.-based 

company that is wholly owned and operated by its ultimate 

1 The website operators assert that they have been unable to locate any 

records of any such requests prior to the cease-and-desist letter. 
DOE V. WEBGROUP CZECH REPUBLIC, A.S. 7

parent company, U.S.-based DigitalOcean Holdings, Inc. 

(“DigitalOcean”). WGCZ and NKL also contract with 

ServerStack to analyze “new [video] uploads,” including for 

purposes of “flagging[] and deleting” child sexual abuse 

material. 

In addition, WGCZ and NKL contract with various 

content delivery networks (“CDNs”), including U.S.-based 

CDN companies, that temporarily copy content from the 

Netherlands-based servers that host XVideos.com and 

Xnxx.com to additional servers, including servers in the 

United States. This temporary copying by CDNs helps to 

ensure that the websites’ “high-definition video content” 

will be “efficiently and reliably stream[ed]” to users who are 

located closer to those CDN servers, thereby providing an 

“uninterrupted experience.” In operating their websites, 

WGCZ and NKL use the services of several Californiabased companies, including Google, EPOCH, PayPal, and 

Twillio. Specifically, WGCZ and NKL contract with 

Google and Twillio to manage emails, and they contract with 

PayPal and EPOCH to manage payments in U.S. dollars to 

and from their users and advertisers.2 WGCZ and NKL are 

also the owners of several registered U.S. trademarks for 

XVideos.com and Xnxx.com. 

Registered users who upload videos to either 

XVideos.com or Xnxx.com agree to similar standard “Terms 

of Service,” which include a provision that users will not 

“submit material that depicts any person under 18 years of 

age (or the age of majority under the laws of [their] state or 

jurisdiction), whether real or simulated.” After submitting 

2 The operative complaint suggests that the companies ended their 

relationship with PayPal in April 2021, but the October 2021 declaration 

of the companies’ administrative director refers to the companies’

relationship with PayPal in the present tense. 
8 DOE V. WEBGROUP CZECH REPUBLIC, A.S.

suitable video verification “to prove that the content under 

[their] account is clearly [theirs],” registered users on 

XVideos.com have the option to create a “channel,” which 

allows them to “promote [their] brand through various ads 

and links” and monetize their uploaded videos.3 WGCZ 

“promotes and profits from these partner channels,”

including channels that distributed videos of Plaintiff’s 

abuse. 

As of July 2021, XVideos.com “was ranked the 7th most 

trafficked website globally” and “the 9th most trafficked 

website in the United States,” and Xnxx.com “was ranked 

the 10th most trafficked website both in the world and in the 

United States.” The United States is the largest market for 

both XVideos.com and Xnxx.com, with each website 

generally drawing “between 12 and 19 percent” of its traffic 

from users with U.S.-based IP addresses. Although neither 

WGCZ nor NKL solicits video content for these two 

websites from particular countries or individuals, the 

websites’ advertising includes geographically targeted and 

location-based ads that are arranged by a Czech websiteadvertising company (Traffic F, s.r.o.) that sells ad space to 

third parties. 

B

On March 18, 2021, Plaintiff filed this putative class 

action against WGCZ, NKL, and nine additional foreign 

defendants (collectively, the “Foreign Defendants”),

4 and 

3 Although the operative complaint does not explicitly address the point, 

the apparent inference is that Xnxx.com offers the same ability to 

monetize uploaded videos as does XVideos.com.

4 The nine additional Foreign Defendants consist of seven additional 

Czech entities—namely, (1) WGCZ Holding, a.s.; (2) WGCZ Limited, 

s.r.o.; (3) Traffic F, s.r.o.; (4) GTFlix TV, s.r.o.; (5) FTCP, s.r.o.; (6) HC 
DOE V. WEBGROUP CZECH REPUBLIC, A.S. 9

five U.S.-based defendants (including ServerStack and 

DigitalOcean). In her operative First Amended Complaint, 

Plaintiff sought to represent one or more classes of persons 

who were depicted in child pornography videos and images

that were hosted on defendants’ websites. She asserted, on 

her own and the putative classes’ behalf, four causes of 

action. 

First, Plaintiff asserted a claim under 18 U.S.C. § 1595, 

which creates a private civil cause of action for victims of 

violations of any provision of Chapter 77 of title 18 of the 

United States Code, including the prohibition in 18 U.S.C. 

§ 1591(a)(2) on benefitting from participation in a venture 

that has engaged in sex trafficking. Plaintiff alleged that all 

of the defendants were liable under § 1595’s civil remedy, 

which imposes liability not only on the “perpetrator” of the 

offense, but also on any person who “knowingly benefits, or 

attempts or conspires to benefit, financially or by receiving 

anything of value from participation in a venture which that 

person knew or should have known has engaged in an act in 

violation of this chapter.” 18 U.S.C. § 1595(a). 

Second, Plaintiff alleged that the distribution of child 

pornography depicting her and the class members violated 

the federal child pornography prohibitions in 18 U.S.C. 

§ 2252A. Plaintiff asserted that, as a result, those involved 

in that distribution were liable for damages and other relief 

under the civil action subsection of that statute. See 18 

U.S.C. § 2252A(f). 

Third, Plaintiff alleged that the defendants violated 18 

U.S.C. § 2260(b), which generally prohibits persons outside 

Media, s.r.o.; and (7) FBP Media, s.r.o.—and two natural persons 

(Stephane Michael Pacaud, a “tax resident” of the Czech Republic, and 

his sister Deborah Malorie Pacaud, a citizen of France). 
10 DOE V. WEBGROUP CZECH REPUBLIC, A.S.

the United States from trafficking in child pornography,

“intending that the visual depiction will be imported into the 

United States.” According to Plaintiff, the defendants were 

therefore liable under the civil cause of action in 18 U.S.C. 

§ 2255(a) for “personal injury as a result of such violation.” 

Fourth, Plaintiff alleged that defendants were liable 

under California’s statute creating a civil cause of action in 

favor of a person who suffers damages from the 

unauthorized distribution of private sexually explicit images

of that person. See CAL. CIV. CODE § 1708.85. 

The defendants filed various motions to dismiss, only 

one of which is at issue here. Specifically, the Foreign 

Defendants moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil 

Procedure 12(b)(2) for lack of personal jurisdiction. In an 

amended order issued on January 13, 2022, the district court 

granted that motion. In its order, the court held that Plaintiff 

had failed to establish personal jurisdiction over WGCZ and 

NKL. Because the remaining nine Foreign Defendants were 

only included in the lawsuit on the theory that they had an 

“alter ego relationship” with WGCZ and NKL, the court 

concluded that its lack of jurisdiction over WGCZ and NKL 

meant that the court “also lack[ed] personal jurisdiction over 

their potential alter-egos.” Accordingly, the court held that 

Plaintiff’s request for jurisdictional discovery “to prove the 

existence of an alter ego relationship” was moot and that the 

court did not need to decide whether any of these additional 

nine Foreign Defendants were in fact alter egos. On 

February 25, 2022, the court denied Plaintiff’s motion for 

reconsideration concerning the dismissal of the Foreign 

Defendants, except that the court explicitly clarified that its 

dismissal of these defendants was without prejudice. 
DOE V. WEBGROUP CZECH REPUBLIC, A.S. 11

The district court’s January 13, 2022 order also 

dismissed the claims against the five remaining U.S.-based 

defendants for failure to state a claim, but the order granted 

leave to file a further amended complaint on or before 

February 15, 2022. Plaintiff, however, did not file an 

amended complaint and instead filed a notice of appeal on 

March 28, 2022. Shortly thereafter, the district court issued 

an order dismissing the case with prejudice. Construing its 

February 25, 2022 order on reconsideration as having 

granted leave to file an amended complaint against the 

Foreign Defendants as well, the court noted that Plaintiff had 

failed to file any amended complaint, and it therefore 

dismissed the action with prejudice and entered judgment 

accordingly. Under our decision in Weston Fam. P’ship 

LLLP v. Twitter, Inc., 29 F.4th 611, 618–19 (9th Cir. 2022), 

the district court’s subsequent formal dismissal order and 

final judgment, even though filed after the notice of appeal, 

cures any prematurity arising from the fact that Plaintiff filed 

a notice of appeal at a time when she still had leave to amend 

the complaint. Accordingly, we have jurisdiction under 28 

U.S.C. § 1291 over Plaintiff’s appeal. 

II

A court may exercise personal jurisdiction over a 

defendant if such jurisdiction is authorized by applicable law 

and “the exercise of that jurisdiction does not violate federal 

due process.” Pebble Beach Co. v. Caddy, 453 F.3d 1151, 

1154 (9th Cir. 2006). The only applicable law that Plaintiff 

contends authorizes personal jurisdiction over the Foreign 

Defendants here is Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(k)(2). 

That rule provides that, “[f]or a claim that arises under 

federal law,” a court may assert “personal jurisdiction over 

a defendant” if (1) “the defendant is not subject to 

jurisdiction in any state’s courts of general jurisdiction” and 
12 DOE V. WEBGROUP CZECH REPUBLIC, A.S.

(2) “exercising jurisdiction is consistent with the United 

States Constitution and laws.” FED. R. CIV. P. 4(k)(2).

Because the first three causes of action in Plaintiff’s 

complaint expressly “arise[] under federal law,” id., the 

threshold requirement for invoking Rule 4(k)(2) is satisfied, 

at least with respect to those three claims.5 Moreover, the 

parties agree that none of the Foreign Defendants are 

“subject to jurisdiction in any state’s courts of general 

jurisdiction.” FED. R. CIV. P. 4(k)(2)(A). With those 

requirements satisfied, the applicability of Rule 4(k)(2) here 

turns on the final requirement that “exercising” jurisdiction 

over the defendants would be “consistent with the United 

States constitution and laws.” FED. R. CIV. P. 4(k)(2)(B). 

And because no party contends that some other federal law 

limits the applicability of Rule 4(k)(2) here, the reach of that 

5 Although Rule 4(k)(2) does not itself provide for personal jurisdiction 

against foreign defendants with respect to state law claims, we assumed 

in Ayla, LLC v. Alya Skin Pty. Ltd., 11 F.4th 972 (9th Cir. 2021), that the 

jurisdiction provided by that rule would also allow for jurisdiction over 

any pendent state law claims against the same defendants. See id. at 984 

(noting that our upholding of jurisdiction under Rule 4(k)(2) in that case 

would allow for resolution of both the plaintiff’s state law claims and its 

federal claims in a U.S. forum). That assumption was consistent with 

the holdings of other circuits that have concluded that, when federal law 

allows for personal jurisdiction against a particular defendant with 

respect to federal claims, pendent or supplemental jurisdiction may be 

asserted over related state law claims against the same defendant. See 

Laurel Gardens, LLC v. McKenna, 948 F.3d 105, 123–24 (3d Cir. 2020); 

ESAB Grp., Inc. v. Centricut, Inc., 126 F.3d 617, 628–29 (4th Cir. 1997);

IUE AFL-CIO Pension Fund v. Herrmann, 9 F.3d 1049, 1056–57 (2d 

Cir. 1993); see also Canaday v. Anthem Cos., 9 F.4th 392, 401 (6th Cir. 

2021) (distinguishing, on this point, between “pendent claim and pendent 

party personal jurisdiction”). Accordingly, if Rule 4(k)(2) authorizes 

personal jurisdiction against any of the defendants here with respect to 

the federal claims, then the district court may also assert personal 

jurisdiction against those same defendants with respect to Plaintiff’s 

related state law claims.
DOE V. WEBGROUP CZECH REPUBLIC, A.S. 13

rule in this case is co-extensive with the limits of the Due 

Process Clause of the federal Constitution. 

Accordingly, whether personal jurisdiction exists under 

Rule 4(k)(2) turns on whether the requirements of the Due 

Process Clause are satisfied here. A court’s exercise of 

personal jurisdiction over a non-U.S. defendant comports 

with due process if that defendant has “certain minimum 

contacts” with the relevant forum “such that the maintenance 

of the suit does not offend ‘traditional notions of fair play 

and substantial justice.’” Walden v. Fiore, 571 U.S. 277, 283 

(2014) (quoting Int’l Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310, 

316 (1945)). In the context of Rule 4(k)(2), in which no 

individual state has personal jurisdiction over the defendants 

and the claim is based on federal law, the relevant forum for 

assessing whether minimum contacts exist is the United 

States “as a whole.” AMA Multimedia, LLC v. Wanat, 970 

F.3d 1201, 1208 (9th Cir. 2020) (citation omitted). 

Plaintiff does not contend that the Foreign Defendants’

contacts with the United States were sufficient to give rise to 

“general jurisdiction,” which would allow the forum to “hear 

any and all claims against them.” Daimler AG v. Bauman, 

571 U.S. 117, 127 (2014) (citation omitted). To support a 

claim of such general jurisdiction, Plaintiff would have to 

show that the defendant’s contacts with the forum “are so 

‘continuous and systematic’ as to render them essentially at 

home in the forum State.” Id. (citation omitted). Plaintiff 

does not assert that that high standard could be met here. 

“Accordingly, the sole potential basis for personal 

jurisdiction is specific jurisdiction” over the particular 

matters at issue in this lawsuit. Ayla, LLC v. Alya Skin Pty. 

Ltd., 11 F.4th 972, 979 (9th Cir. 2021) (emphasis added). 
14 DOE V. WEBGROUP CZECH REPUBLIC, A.S.

Specific jurisdiction may be constitutionally exercised

over a non-U.S. defendant under Rule 4(k)(2) if three 

requirements are satisfied. First, the defendant must have 

“performed some act or consummated some transaction by 

which it purposefully directed its activities toward the 

United States or purposefully availed itself of the privilege 

of conducting business in the United States.” Ayla, 11 F.4th 

at 979 (simplified). Second, “the claim must be one which 

arises out of or relates to the defendant’s forum-related 

activities.” AMA Multimedia, 970 F.3d at 1208 (citation 

omitted). Third, “the exercise of jurisdiction must comport 

with fair play and substantial justice, i.e.[,] it must be 

reasonable.” Id. (citation omitted). “If any of the three 

requirements is not satisfied, jurisdiction in the forum would 

deprive the defendant of due process of law.” Id. (citation 

omitted). “The plaintiff bears the burden of satisfying the 

first two prongs of th[is] test.” Axiom Foods, Inc. v. 

Acerchem Int’l, Inc., 874 F.3d 1064, 1068 (9th Cir. 2017) 

(citation omitted). If the plaintiff establishes that those two 

prongs are satisfied, “the burden then shifts to the defendant 

to present a compelling case that the exercise of jurisdiction 

would not be reasonable.” Id. at 1068–69 (citation and 

internal quotation marks omitted). 

As we noted earlier, Plaintiff’s argument below was that 

(1) personal jurisdiction existed under this test against 

WGCZ and NKL; and (2) the remaining nine Foreign 

Defendants were alter egos of WGCZ and NKL, such that 

the court’s personal jurisdiction over WGCZ and NKL 

extended to these additional defendants. See supra at 10. 

The district court concluded that Plaintiff’s first premise 

failed and it therefore declined to address either the merits of 

Plaintiff’s alter ego theory or Plaintiff’s request for 

jurisdictional discovery concerning these additional 
DOE V. WEBGROUP CZECH REPUBLIC, A.S. 15

defendants. Consequently, the only issue before us is 

whether the district court correctly held that, under the 

above-described three-prong test, a prima facie showing of 

specific personal jurisdiction against WGCZ and NKL had 

not been shown. We review a dismissal for lack of personal 

jurisdiction de novo. Burri Law PA v. Skurla, 35 F.4th 1207, 

1213 (9th Cir. 2022). 

III

We conclude that the district court erred in holding that 

it lacked specific personal jurisdiction against WGCZ and 

NKL under the three-part due process test set forth above. 

A

The first prong of the due process analysis examines 

whether the defendant either “[1] purposefully directed its 

activities toward the United States or [2] purposefully 

availed itself of the privilege of conducting business in the 

United States.” Ayla, 11 F.4th at 979 (simplified). Although 

these two standards overlap to some extent, “[w]e generally 

focus our inquiry on purposeful availment when the 

underlying claims sound in contract and on purposeful 

direction when they arise from alleged tortious conduct 

committed outside the forum.” Id.; see also Schwarzenegger 

v. Fred Martin Motor Co., 374 F.3d 797, 802 (9th Cir. 2004). 

We have held that the civil cause of action for victims of sextrafficking in 18 U.S.C. § 1595(a) “sounds in tort,” Ditullio 

v. Boehm, 662 F.3d 1091, 1094 (9th Cir. 2011), and the same 

reasoning extends equally to the causes of action established 

for victims of child pornography in 18 U.S.C. §§ 2252A(f) 

and 2255(a). We therefore “focus on purposeful direction 

here.” Ayla, 11 F.4th at 979.
16 DOE V. WEBGROUP CZECH REPUBLIC, A.S.

The governing test for determining whether a defendant 

has purposefully directed its actions toward the forum is the 

so-called “‘effects’ test, derive[d] from Calder v. Jones, 465 

U.S. 783 (1984).” Axiom Foods, 874 F.3d at 1069. Under

that test, “[t]he defendant must have (1) committed an 

intentional act, (2) expressly aimed at the forum state, 

(3) causing harm that the defendant knows is likely to be 

suffered in the forum state.” Id. (citation and internal 

quotation marks omitted). WGCZ and NKL concede that 

they committed intentional acts by operating Xvideos.com 

and Xnxx.com, and so the first element of the Calder test is 

met. WGCZ and NKL contend, however, that the other two 

elements have not been satisfied, and we therefore address 

those elements in turn.

1

We conclude that Plaintiff made a sufficient prima facie 

showing that WGCZ’s and NKL’s operation of their 

pornography websites was “expressly aimed” at the United 

States. Axiom Foods, 874 F.3d at 1069 (citation omitted).

We have held that “maintenance of a passive website 

alone cannot satisfy the express aiming prong” of the Calder

effects test. Mavrix Photo, Inc. v. Brand Techs., Inc., 647 

F.3d 1218, 1229 (9th Cir. 2011) (citation omitted). 

However, “operating even a passive website in conjunction 

with ‘something more’—conduct directly targeting the 

forum—is sufficient.” Id. (citation omitted). In determining 

whether a defendant’s operation of a particular website has 

crossed the line between passively benefiting from U.S. 

users of its website and expressly aiming its website at such 

users, “we have considered several factors, including the 

interactivity of the defendant’s website; the geographic 

scope of the defendant’s commercial ambitions; and whether 
DOE V. WEBGROUP CZECH REPUBLIC, A.S. 17

the defendant ‘individually targeted’ a plaintiff known to be 

a forum resident.” Id. (citations omitted). Plaintiff does not 

contend that she was “individually targeted” in the sense that 

Mavrix describes. Id. (citation omitted). Rather, the 

question here is whether express aiming at the U.S. market 

has been shown by virtue of what the evidence reveals about

(1) how WGCZ and NKL operate these particular websites 

and (2) the “geographic scope” of the companies’ 

“commercial ambitions” in doing so. Id. To establish the 

requisite “something more” based on these sorts of 

considerations, we have held that the plaintiff must show that 

the website operator “both actively appealed to and profited 

from an audience” in the U.S. forum. Will Co., Ltd. v. Lee, 

47 F.4th 917, 922–23 (9th Cir. 2022) (simplified). Here, as 

in Will, that showing has been sufficiently made. 

Will concerned a Japanese pornographer’s U.S. 

copyright infringement claims against the defendant 

operators of an adult “video-hosting site based in Hong 

Kong.” See 47 F.4th at 919. In concluding that the 

defendants operated their website in a way that was 

expressly aimed at the United States, we emphasized that the 

defendants had taken two specific steps that “reduced the 

time it takes for the site to load in the United States.” Id. at 

924. Specifically, the defendants “acquired hosting services 

from an American company, Gorilla Servers, with servers in 

Utah,” and they “purchase[d] content delivery network 

services for North America.” Id. at 920, 924. The use of 

these measures, we held, showed that the defendants “chose 

to have the site load faster for viewers in the United States 

and slower for viewers in other places around the world.” Id. 

at 925. Given that “[t]he time it takes for a site to load, 

sometimes referred to as a site’s ‘latency,’ is critical to a 

website’s success,” we held that the defendants’ adoption of 
18 DOE V. WEBGROUP CZECH REPUBLIC, A.S.

measures that differentially favored the United States market 

was “good evidence” of the defendants’ efforts to actively 

appeal specifically to the United States market, as opposed 

to passively offering a website to the world at large. Id. at 

924–25.

Here, in contrast to Will, WGCZ and NKL did not 

contract to host their websites on physical servers in the 

United States. However, they did contract with U.S.-based 

content delivery network services (“CDNs”) for their

websites, and they did so for the conceded purpose of 

ensuring that “users viewing videos have [an] uninterrupted 

experience.” As WGCZ and NKL acknowledge, “it is not 

ideal to efficiently and reliably stream high-definition video 

content to all users over the globe without using CDNs.” 

According to WGCZ and NKL, its CDN providers “‘pull’ 

certain content from [the companies’] servers in Amsterdam 

onto the CDN providers’ regional facilities based upon local 

user clicks and videos.” That content “is temporarily cached 

on, and served from, the CDN facilities and subsequently 

deleted.” By using U.S.-based CDNs to improve the 

viewing experience of persons near those CDNs, and by

allowing CDN providers to pull content onto the U.S.-based 

CDNs’ servers to do so, WGCZ and NKL have differentially 

targeted U.S. visitors in a way that, under Will, constitutes 

express aiming at the U.S. market. See Briskin v. Shopify, 

Inc., 87 F.4th 404, 420 (9th Cir. 2023) (noting that, under 

Will, express aiming is shown when there is “some 

differentiation of the forum state from other locations”).

On this point, our decision in Ayla is also instructive. In 

Ayla, a U.S.-based beauty company sued an Australian 

skincare company for trademark infringement and related 

torts. 11 F.4th at 976–77. In holding that the Australian 

defendant was subject to personal jurisdiction in the United 
DOE V. WEBGROUP CZECH REPUBLIC, A.S. 19

States under Rule 4(k)(2) for these claims, we held that the 

defendant had “done more than merely place its products 

into the stream of commerce, running the risk that its 

products might randomly or serendipitously arrive in the 

United States.” Id. at 981. In particular, we noted that the

Australian defendant had contracted with “Dollar 

Fulfillment,” a third-party Idaho fulfilment center, in order

to ensure that it could “ship its products quickly within the 

United States.” Id. at 984. We noted that “[b]y contracting 

with a distribution center in the United States, [defendant]

could offer two- to four-day shipping within the United 

States, whereas delivery to most other parts of the world 

would take five to ten days.” Id. at 982. WGCZ’s and 

NKL’s purchase of U.S.-based CDN services to ensure faster 

website loading times and a more seamless viewing 

experience for U.S. users is the digital analogue of 

contracting with a U.S. fulfilment center to enable faster 

product delivery for U.S. customers. Here, as in Ayla, the 

use of such a U.S.-based operation to facilitate quick 

delivery of product to nearby consumers demonstrates the 

sort of differential targeting that constitutes express aiming 

at the U.S. market.

In arguing for a contrary conclusion, WGCZ and NKL 

rely on AMA Multimedia, in which we declined to find that 

a Polish pornography website had expressly aimed at the 

U.S. market merely by using a U.S.-based “domain name 

server (‘DNS’)” company. 970 F.3d at 1205. As we 

explained, a DNS company “allows users to access [a 

website] more efficiently by translating its domain names 

[i.e., webpage addresses] into Internet Protocol addresses.” 

Id. We held that, even if the use of a U.S.-based company to 

perform this basic threshold step for locating a webpage

resulted in faster speeds for U.S. users, such a contract for 
20 DOE V. WEBGROUP CZECH REPUBLIC, A.S.

DNS services was nonetheless insufficient to show a 

differential “desire to appeal to the U.S. market or generate 

more U.S. users, as opposed to more users globally.” Id. at 

1212. But unlike the mere use of a U.S.-based company in 

AMA Multimedia for the basic threshold step of translating 

webpages into IP addresses, the use of CDNs in particular

locations to pull content onto local servers in those locations 

(including specifically the United States), and for the express

purpose of improving nearby users’ viewing experience, 

demonstrates differential targeting of the U.S. market. See 

id. at 1212 n.8 (distinguishing UMG Recordings, Inc. v. 

Kurbanov, 963 F.3d 344, 354 (4th Cir. 2020), on the ground 

that, inter alia, the defendant in UMG, who was alleged to 

have infringed the plaintiff’s copyrights, had “relied on U.S.-

based servers” (citation omitted)). 

The fact that WGCZ and NKL may have also

differentially targeted other particular locations does not 

detract from the fact that their use of U.S.-based CDNs 

shows that they expressly aimed their websites at the U.S. 

market. Indeed, in Will, we found express aiming due to the 

use of U.S.-based CDNs, even though the defendant also 

used other CDNs in Asia. See 47 F.4th at 920, 925. 

Likewise, in Ayla, we held that the Australian defendant’s 

use of advertising that was targeted “specifically at 

Americans” showed express aiming at the U.S. market, even 

though the defendant “addressed much of its advertising to 

an international or Australian audience.” Id. at 980–81. As 

we explained, the existence of other advertising specifically 

directed at other markets did “not alter the jurisdictional 

effect of marketing targeted specifically at the United States, 

the relevant forum.” Id. at 981. 

Moreover, as in Will, WGCZ and NKL not only actively

appealed to a U.S.-based audience, but they also “profited 
DOE V. WEBGROUP CZECH REPUBLIC, A.S. 21

from an audience in that forum.” 47 F.4th at 922–23 

(simplified). Users in the United States account for between 

12% and 19% of the traffic on both XVideos.com and 

Xnxx.com, and so those websites “earned considerable 

revenue from that market.” Id. at 924 (explaining that the 

defendant made money by selling website advertising space 

and that the defendant made more money from advertisers 

when more visitors accessed its website). 

We recognize that, as WGCZ and NKL correctly 

contend, Plaintiff did not make a prima facie showing that 

the specific advertising structure used by XVideos.com and 

Xnxx.com would itself be sufficient to show express aiming 

at the United States. In AMA Multimedia, we held that the 

use of a “third-party advertising company” to provide “geolocated advertisements” that are “always directed” at 

whatever forum happens to be the source of that particular 

visit by a website user does not constitute express aiming. 

970 F.3d at 1211 (emphasis in original). Put another way, 

AMA Multimedia held that tailoring ads to the particular 

geographic source of every particular user who visits a page 

is effectively the same as passively offering the webpage to 

any visitor from anywhere in the globe, and it is therefore 

the antithesis of differential aiming at a subset of particular 

locations. By contrast, we clarified in Will that, under our 

decision in Mavrix, an advertising structure that entails more 

advertising revenue based on a greater number of clicks in a 

particular jurisdiction shows “something more” than the 

mere use of generic geo-located advertising. See Will, 47 

F.4th at 924 (citation omitted). Here, the record does not 

contain sufficient evidence to say whether WGCZ’s and 

NKL’s advertising falls on the AMA Multimedia side of the 

line or the Mavrix/Will side, and we therefore cannot say that 

the companies’ advertising, standing alone, demonstrates
22 DOE V. WEBGROUP CZECH REPUBLIC, A.S.

express aiming at the United States. However, we have 

already concluded that WGCZ’s and NKL’s use of U.S.-

based CDNs to improve the viewing experience of U.S. 

visitors shows that WGCZ and NKL actively targeted the 

U.S. market. Therefore, the substantial financial success that 

the companies achieved from those efforts is a relevant 

additional factor in confirming that the companies expressly 

aimed their websites at the United States. As in Will, the 

record here shows that WGCZ and NKL “both actively 

appealed to and profited from an audience in that forum.” 47 

F.4th at 922–23 (simplified).6 

Accordingly, we conclude that WGCZ’s and NKL’s 

operation of their websites was “expressly aimed” at the 

United States and that this element of the Calder test for

determining purposeful direction has been satisfied. 

2

We turn, then, to the remaining prong of the Calder test, 

which asks whether WGCZ’s and NKL’s operation of their 

websites “caus[ed] harm that the defendant[s] know[] is 

likely to be suffered in the forum state.” Axiom Foods, 874 

F.3d at 1069 (citation omitted); AMA Multimedia, 970 F.3d 

6 Similarly, while WGCZ’s and NKL’s mere act of registering 

trademarks in the United States might not by itself be sufficient to show 

express aiming at the United States, it is a consideration that further 

confirms the companies’ efforts to differentially protect their ability to 

reach, and profit from, U.S.-based users of their websites. See Ayla, 11 

F.4th at 982 n.4 (noting that a foreign defendant’s action in registering a 

trademark in the United States “might be considered compelling 

evidence that [it] has satisfied the purposeful availment or direction 

test”). By contrast, we attach little weight to the fact that WGCZ and 

NKL used U.S.-based companies for generic email and payment services 

involving its user base generally. At least on the current record, Plaintiff 

has not shown that WGCZ’s and NKL’s use of these services shows a 

differential aiming at the U.S. market.
DOE V. WEBGROUP CZECH REPUBLIC, A.S. 23

at 1209 (citation omitted). The answer to that question is 

yes.

“A defendant causes harm in a particular forum when the 

‘bad acts’ that form the basis of the plaintiff’s complaint 

occur in that forum.” Will, 47 F.4th at 926 (citing Mavrix, 

647 F.3d at 1231). Here, the harm on which Plaintiff’s 

complaint is based is the publication of videos of her 

childhood sexual abuse on WGCZ’s and NKL’s websites. 

At least one of those videos attracted more than 160,000 

views worldwide before it was taken down in response to a 

cease-and-desist letter from Plaintiff’s attorney. And given 

that between 12% and 19% of the relevant websites’ users 

are in the United States, it is clear that a substantial volume 

of the widespread publication of the videos of Plaintiff’s 

abuse occurred in the United States. These facts more than 

suffice to bring this case squarely within the rule that, where

“a Defendant’s actions cause harm in multiple fora, 

jurisdiction is proper in any forum where a ‘sufficient’ 

amount of harm occurs, even if that amounts to only a small 

percentage of the overall harm caused.” Id. (citing Yahoo! 

Inc. v. La Ligue Contre Le Racisme Et L’Antisemitisme, 433 

F.3d 1199, 1207 (9th Cir. 2006) (en banc)). Indeed, in Will, 

we held that sufficient publication-related harms (i.e., 

copyright infringement) had been suffered in the United 

States when U.S. viewers made up only 4.6% of the 

viewership of a foreign website. Id. at 926–27; see also 

Keeton v. Hustler Mag., Inc., 465 U.S. 770, 780–81 (1984)

(holding that jurisdiction was proper in New Hampshire for 

publication-based defamation torts, even though the 

defendant magazine publisher sold most of its magazines 

elsewhere and that, as a result, “the bulk of the harm done to 

[the plaintiff] occurred outside New Hampshire”); see also 

Keeton v. Hustler Mag., Inc., 682 F.2d 33, 33 (1st Cir. 1982)
24 DOE V. WEBGROUP CZECH REPUBLIC, A.S.

(noting, in the decision subsequently reviewed by the 

Supreme Court, that the percentage of the defendant’s 

magazines that were sold in New Hampshire was “less than 

one percent”).

Moreover, this U.S.-based publication harm was clearly 

foreseeable, given the facts described earlier concerning 

WGCZ’s and NKL’s targeting of the U.S. market and the 

inferences that may reasonably be drawn in Plaintiff’s favor. 

Here, as in Will, the relevant defendants “actively appealed 

to a U.S. audience, knew that a significant number of people 

in the United States were actually viewing the website[s], 

and were put on notice that they were hosting [the offending 

material] when [Plaintiff] sent them a takedown notice.” 47 

F.4th at 927. Given these facts, it is “hard to see how 

[WGCZ and NKL] could have failed to anticipate the harm 

that occurred in the forum.” Id.

Because Plaintiff has met all the requirements of the

Calder effects test, she has established a prima facie case 

that WGCZ and NKL purposefully directed their websites at 

the United States, and she has therefore satisfied the first 

prong of the due process analysis.

B

The second prong of the due process analysis requires

Plaintiff to show that her claims “arise out of or relate to” 

WGCZ’s and NKL’s “contacts with the forum.” Ford Motor 

Co. v. Mont. Eighth Jud. Dist. Ct., 592 U.S. 351, 141 S. Ct. 

1017, 1026 (2021) (citation and emphasis omitted). Where, 

as here, the relevant contacts with the forum consist of 

directing a content-sharing website at the U.S. market, we 

have little difficulty concluding that the Plaintiff’s 

publication-based harms arise out of those forum-related 

activities. 
DOE V. WEBGROUP CZECH REPUBLIC, A.S. 25

As we held in Mavrix, where a defendant published 

copyrighted photographs “on a website accessible to users in 

the forum state,” the copyright owner’s “claim of copyright 

infringement arises out of [that] publication,” thereby 

satisfying the second prong of the due process analysis. 647 

F.3d at 1228. And in Keeton, in which the forum-related 

activities consisted of distributing magazines in New 

Hampshire, the Supreme Court held that a plaintiff’s claim 

that she was defamed in those magazines “arises out of the 

very activity being conducted, in part, in New Hampshire.” 

465 U.S. at 780. We reached the same conclusion with 

respect to a defamation claim based on “libelous articles” 

contained in “international medical journals” that were 

distributed in California: such “libel claims clearly ‘arose 

out’ of the publication of the articles.” Core-Vent Corp. v. 

Nobel Indus. AB, 11 F.3d 1482, 1485 (9th Cir. 1993). Based 

on these precedents, it is clear that Plaintiff’s claims seeking 

redress for harms caused by WGCZ’s and NKL’s 

publication of the videos of her abuse arise from those 

companies’ forum-related activities in targeting those 

websites towards the U.S. market.

C

The only remaining question concerns the third prong of 

the due process analysis, under which “the exercise of 

jurisdiction . . . must be reasonable.” Axiom Foods, 874 F.3d 

at 1068 (citation omitted). Where, as here, the plaintiff has 

satisfied the first two prongs, “the burden then shifts to the 

defendant to ‘present a compelling case’ that the exercise of 

jurisdiction would not be reasonable.’” Id. at 1068–69 

(emphasis added) (citation omitted). WGCZ and NKL have 

not carried that burden.
26 DOE V. WEBGROUP CZECH REPUBLIC, A.S.

In evaluating the reasonableness of an exercise of 

personal jurisdiction, we “use a seven-factor balancing test 

that weighs”: 

(1) the extent of the defendant’s purposeful 

interjection into the forum state’s affairs; 

(2) the burden on the defendant of defending 

in the forum; (3) the extent of conflict with 

the sovereignty of the defendant’s state; 

(4) the forum state’s interest in adjudicating 

the dispute; (5) the most efficient judicial 

resolution of the controversy; (6) the 

importance of the forum to the plaintiff’s 

interest in convenient and effective relief; 

and (7) the existence of an alternative forum.

Freestream Aircraft (Bermuda) Ltd. v. Aero Law. Grp., 905 

F.3d 597, 607 (9th Cir. 2018). Consideration of these factors 

here confirms the reasonableness of exercising personal 

jurisdiction over WGCZ and NKL. 

As we reaffirmed in Ayla, the “purposeful interjection 

factor in the reasonableness analysis is ‘analogous to the 

purposeful direction’” prong. 11 F.4th at 984 (quoting 

Sinatra v. Nat’l Enquirer, Inc., 854 F.2d 1191, 1199 (9th Cir. 

1988)). Here, WGCZ and NKL have purposely directed 

their websites at the U.S. market, using U.S.-based CDN

service providers, and they thereby garnered substantial and 

financially valuable web traffic in the United States. Given 

these “ongoing ties to the forum,” this “factor weighs in 

favor of jurisdiction.” Id.

Given WGCZ’s and NKL’s “extensive contacts with the 

United States,” their argument that it would be unduly 

burdensome to “have to travel to the United States for court 
DOE V. WEBGROUP CZECH REPUBLIC, A.S. 27

appearances is entitled to little weight.” Ayla, 11 F.4th at 

984. That remains true even though, as a general matter, 

“litigation in a distant forum is inconvenient” and there are 

“‘unique burdens placed upon one who must defend oneself 

in a foreign legal system.’” Id. (quoting Asahi Metal Indus. 

Co., Ltd. v. Super. Ct. of Cal., Solano Cnty., 480 U.S. 102, 

114 (1987)). As the Supreme Court recognized in Asahi, 

“[w]hen minimum contacts have been established, often the 

interests of the plaintiff and the forum in the exercise of 

jurisdiction will justify even the serious burdens placed on 

the alien defendant.” 480 U.S. at 114. Here, a U.S. forum 

is important to Plaintiff’s “interest in convenient and 

effective relief.” Freestream, 905 F.3d at 607. Further, a

U.S. forum has a very powerful interest in adjudicating a 

dispute involving alleged dissemination of child 

pornography depicting the rape of a 14-year-old U.S. citizen 

who was subjected to sex trafficking. See Ayla, 11 F.4th at 

984 (holding that the United States has an interest in 

protecting, and providing redress to, its citizens). By 

contrast, there is no unreasonable interference with the 

sovereignty of the Czech Republic, given that there is and 

can be no contention that hosting videos of 14-year-olds 

being raped is lawful under Czech law. And the “most 

efficient judicial resolution” of this controversy concerning 

claims made by a U.S. citizen under U.S. law about the 

website publication of materials made available in the 

United States would be in a U.S. forum. Freestream, 905 

F.3d at 607; see also Ayla, 11 F.4th at 984. 

Finally, we have held that the remaining factor—namely, 

“the existence of an alternative forum”—is relevant only 

when, under the other factors, a U.S. forum “is shown to be 

unreasonable.” Ayla, 11 F.4th at 984 (citations omitted). As 
28 DOE V. WEBGROUP CZECH REPUBLIC, A.S.

we have explained, WGCZ and NKL have “not made that 

showing.” Id. at 985 (citation omitted).

Taking all these considerations together, we conclude 

that WGCZ and NKL have failed to make a compelling 

showing that the exercise of personal jurisdiction here would 

be unreasonable.

IV

For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that Plaintiff 

sufficiently established a prima facie case for exercising 

personal jurisdiction over WGCZ and NKL, and those 

defendants failed to show that the exercise of such 

jurisdiction would be unreasonable. We therefore reverse 

the district court’s dismissal of this action against WGCZ 

and NKL for lack of personal jurisdiction. Because, as we 

explained earlier, the district court dismissed the remaining 

nine Foreign Defendants solely on the ground that there was 

no personal jurisdiction over WGCZ and NKL, we vacate 

the dismissal of those additional defendants. On remand, the 

district court should address the remaining unresolved issues 

concerning whether personal jurisdiction may be asserted 

against those additional defendants.

REVERSED IN PART, VACATED IN PART, and 

REMANDED.
DOE V. WEBGROUP CZECH REPUBLIC, A.S. 29

LEE, Circuit Judge, concurring. 

I largely agree with Judge Collins’ excellent opinion. 

But I write separately because it would have been prudent 

for the district court to have ordered very limited 

jurisdictional discovery here. Such discovery would have 

tethered the district court’s analysis more tightly onto our 

circuit’s personal jurisdiction framework. 

For example, it would have helped to know the extent of 

WGCZ’s and NKL’s use of content delivery network 

services (CDNs) in the United States—and elsewhere 

around the globe—to improve the viewing experience of 

their users. That, in turn, would have aided us in determining 

whether WGCZ and NKL differentially targeted the United 

States and thus expressly aimed at our market. Will Co., Ltd. 

v. Lee, 47 F.4th 917, 922–26 (9th Cir. 2022). 

But even without such jurisdictional discovery, other 

evidence and common sense strongly suggest that WGCZ 

and NKL expressly aimed at the United States market. And 

it makes little sense to insist on a remand on that issue and 

further delay this case involving allegations of underaged 

sex trafficking. Cf. Gundy v. United States, 588 U.S. __ 

(2019) (Alito, J., concurring in the judgment) (noting that it 

would be “freakish to single out” the provision at issue, 

given the circumstances). But in other less obvious cases, it 

may behoove a district court to allow jurisdictional 

discovery, especially if the pleadings are imprecise.