E-Hentai launched as a
Yahoo! Group on July 1, 1999. The group moved to a
.net domain in 2001 before moving to its current
.org domain in 2005 after ownership of its .net domain lapsed and was purchased by another party. On 26 July 2019, site owner Tenboro announced that both E-Hentai and Exhentai would shut down in response to legal and policy changes affecting their Dutch hosting environment, giving users short notice to back up content. The shutdown triggered mass archiving attempts by users across image boards and forums. Exhentai relaunched on 3 August 2019 after a hosting migration, with Asian tech media reporting the move and the service’s rapid restoration.
Vice speculated that the shutdown was in reaction to the
Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market adopted by the
European Union in June 2019, which makes digital platforms legally liable for material posted by users that violates copyright, as well as a July 2019 proposal by Dutch Minister of Justice
Ferdinand Grapperhaus to impose harsher punishments on websites that do not rapidly remove child pornography. 24 hours' notice was given for the shutdown of Exhentai, leading users on the image board
4chan to attempt to archive the entire site before it closed on July 27. On August 2, 2019, Exhentai relaunched after its servers relocated to
Moldova. ==Operations==