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Utah first state to hold websites liable for users who mask their location with VPNs — law goes into effect, designed to prevent bypassing age checks (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 6 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 2 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Neither is enforceable.

They are enforceable. In the first case they can ban transactions to the VPN and ban the website from all ISP's. In the second case they can just ban transactions to Mullvad and should Proton not comply with the ban to Proton too.

It's not about banning people from using the VPN, it's about scaring away the VPN providers.

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    There are hundreds of VPN providers. People looking to circumvent bans where VPNs are banned are not using mainstream providers. It's only enforceable if the VPN company is in a country that will care to enforce your ban. Most of them are not.

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  • [–] 4 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    I'm trying to find a rebuttal to that but I got nothing, and it finally makes sense to me why the government isn't banning VPN's.

    Currently most major VPN's respond to legal requests from the government. If the government chooses to ban VPN's, then people will change to VPN's that won't respond to legal requests. That would leave the government with less power to police the internet, not more.

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago*

    Exactly, that is why authoritarian countries trying to exert absolute control on their internet are still failing!

    There is even a category of VPN providers who (directly) collect absolutely no information from you and accept all kind of payment methods, some not traceable or at the very least not blockable. So even if they do respond to government requests... They have nothing to give.

    Controlling the internet is a very delicate task and that's why laws are always tiptoeing around it. There is a sweet spot where you control just enough without inciting people to go pay shady services that you have zero control over

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