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It's official: Utah is the U.S. state closest to banning VPNs

tech.yahoo.com

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Re: It's official: Utah is the U.S. state closest to banning VPNs

#2
> It's official: Utah is the U.S. state closest to banning VPNs

> The law, which takes effect May 6, doesn't make VPNs illegal — but it's a blow to your rights, even if you don't live in Utah.

> websites subject to the state's age verification law will be legally barred from explaining how to use a VPN to get around age restrictions. They'll also be liable for enforcing age verification for any user within Utah's physical borders — regardless of their apparent virtual location.

The title is disgustingly clickbaity.

Re: It's official: Utah is the U.S. state closest to banning VPNs

#3
post #2

> It's official: Utah is the U.S. state closest to banning VPNs > The law, which takes effect May 6, doesn't make VPNs illegal — but it's a blow to your rights, even if you don't live in Utah. > websites subject to the state's age verification law will be legally barred from explaining how to use a VPN to get around age restrictions. They'll also be liable for enforcing age verification for any user within Utah's phy…

I usually hate weird laws like that, and I hate giving the government more control in general, but... I'm having a hard time really freaking out about just being barred from websites being told not to tell their users... how to bypass the law. This would be bad in many scenarios.

Re: It's official: Utah is the U.S. state closest to banning VPNs

#4
post #2

> It's official: Utah is the U.S. state closest to banning VPNs > The law, which takes effect May 6, doesn't make VPNs illegal — but it's a blow to your rights, even if you don't live in Utah. > websites subject to the state's age verification law will be legally barred from explaining how to use a VPN to get around age restrictions. They'll also be liable for enforcing age verification for any user within Utah's phy…

Seems like the first part of that law would be struck down on First Amendment challenges.

Second would be technically impossible, or the responsibility of VPN providers to somehow forward geo-location information for website operators to consume.

Re: It's official: Utah is the U.S. state closest to banning VPNs

#6
post #2

> It's official: Utah is the U.S. state closest to banning VPNs > The law, which takes effect May 6, doesn't make VPNs illegal — but it's a blow to your rights, even if you don't live in Utah. > websites subject to the state's age verification law will be legally barred from explaining how to use a VPN to get around age restrictions. They'll also be liable for enforcing age verification for any user within Utah's phy…

I don't think so. How do you think they can implement your third quote with substantially undermining VPNs? Do you know of other states closer to banning them, either directly or indirectly?

Re: It's official: Utah is the U.S. state closest to banning VPNs

#10
Too bad companies did not have 'ba*s' to block their sites from being accessed in Utah. If all companies did that, it would stop all these crazy laws instantly.

Where I live, one site I log into started asking for my birth date. That is in a State were age verification is not yet even being talked about. So my response is to never go to that site again. I believe it will change once users start dropping off that site.

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