{"id":1917921,"date":"2026-05-04T21:07:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T18:07:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1917921"},"modified":"2026-05-04T21:07:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T18:07:25","slug":"utah-will-ban-vpn-use-to-circumvent-age-verification","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1917921","title":{"rendered":"Utah Will Ban VPN Use to Circumvent Age Verification"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.cnet.com\/a\/img\/resize\/f4325cd7fc2c3c386d526deb74ba6a3c1fdb4697\/hub\/2026\/01\/30\/9a92d71c-de90-4af1-898e-4da5cca94380\/4.jpg?auto=webp&fit=crop&height=675&width=1200″]<\/p>\n

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Utah is set to become the first state to prohibit the use of VPNs<\/span><\/span> to avoid age-verification barriers after legislation goes into effect on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Senate Bill 73 will hold websites liable for people who mask their location while in Utah and will effectively treat anyone who connects to a Utah VPN as someone physically in Utah for age-verification purposes.<\/p>\n

The legislation follows similar proposed bills from Wisconsin and Michigan<\/span><\/span>\u00a0and is seen as the first major US step toward regulating VPN use to avoid age verification.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, privacy advocates warn that the legislation could lead to a blanket ban of all VPN addresses in a “technical whack-a-mole that likely no company can win”. The Electronic Frontiers Federation wrote that\u00a0“if a website cannot reliably detect a VPN user’s true location and the law requires it to do so for all users in a particular state, then the legal risk could push the site to either ban all known VPN IPs, or to mandate age verification for every visitor globally.”<\/p>\n

In the past year, both Australia<\/span><\/span> and the UK<\/span><\/span> have enacted age-verification measures<\/span><\/span> to restrict access to “harmful content.” While Australia’s legislation has been called an “unmitigated disaster” by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, it’s been reported that children in the UK have been drawing on mustaches<\/span><\/span> to get past age barriers.<\/p>\n

Representatives for the EFF and the Utah Senate didn’t respond immediately to CNET’s request for more information.<\/p>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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            \"Headshot<\/div>\n
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            TY PENDLEBURY<\/span><\/div>\n

            Editor<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

            TV and home video editor Ty Pendlebury joined CNET Australia in 2006, and moved to New York City to be a part of CNET in 2011. He tests, reviews and writes about the latest TVs and audio equipment. When he’s not playing Call of Duty he’s eating whatever cuisine he can get his hands on. He has a cat named after one of the best TVs ever made.<\/span> See full bio <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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            Utah is set to become the first state to prohibit the use of VPNs<\/span><\/span> to avoid age-verification barriers after legislation goes into effect on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

            Senate Bill 73 will hold websites liable for people who mask their location while in Utah and will effectively treat anyone who connects to a Utah VPN as someone physically in Utah for age-verification purposes.<\/p>\n

            The legislation follows similar proposed bills from Wisconsin and Michigan<\/span><\/span>\u00a0and is seen as the first major US step toward regulating VPN use to avoid age verification.\u00a0<\/p>\n

            However, privacy advocates warn that the legislation could lead to a blanket ban of all VPN addresses in a “technical whack-a-mole that likely no company can win”. The Electronic Frontiers Federation wrote that\u00a0“if a website cannot reliably detect a VPN user’s true location and the law requires it to do so for all users in a particular state, then the legal risk could push the site to either ban all known VPN IPs, or to mandate age verification for every visitor globally.”<\/p>\n

            In the past year, both Australia<\/span><\/span> and the UK<\/span><\/span> have enacted age-verification measures<\/span><\/span> to restrict access to “harmful content.” While Australia’s legislation has been called an “unmitigated disaster” by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, it’s been reported that children in the UK have been drawing on mustaches<\/span><\/span> to get past age barriers.<\/p>\n

            Representatives for the EFF and the Utah Senate didn’t respond immediately to CNET’s request for more information.<\/p>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

            \n

            Utah is set to become the first state to prohibit the use of VPNs<\/span><\/span> to avoid age-verification barriers after legislation goes into effect on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

            Senate Bill 73 will hold websites liable for people who mask their location while in Utah and will effectively treat anyone who connects to a Utah VPN as someone physically in Utah for age-verification purposes.<\/p>\n

            The legislation follows similar proposed bills from Wisconsin and Michigan<\/span><\/span>\u00a0and is seen as the first major US step toward regulating VPN use to avoid age verification.\u00a0<\/p>\n

            However, privacy advocates warn that the legislation could lead to a blanket ban of all VPN addresses in a “technical whack-a-mole that likely no company can win”. The Electronic Frontiers Federation wrote that\u00a0“if a website cannot reliably detect a VPN user’s true location and the law requires it to do so for all users in a particular state, then the legal risk could push the site to either ban all known VPN IPs, or to mandate age verification for every visitor globally.”<\/p>\n

            In the past year, both Australia<\/span><\/span> and the UK<\/span><\/span> have enacted age-verification measures<\/span><\/span> to restrict access to “harmful content.” While Australia’s legislation has been called an “unmitigated disaster” by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, it’s been reported that children in the UK have been drawing on mustaches<\/span><\/span> to get past age barriers.<\/p>\n

            Representatives for the EFF and the Utah Senate didn’t respond immediately to CNET’s request for more information.<\/p>\n<\/article>\n

            [analyse_source url=”http:\/\/cnet.com\/tech\/services-and-software\/utah-will-ban-vpn-use-to-circumvent-age-verification\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

            [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.cnet.com\/a\/img\/resize\/f4325cd7fc2c3c386d526deb74ba6a3c1fdb4697\/hub\/2026\/01\/30\/9a92d71c-de90-4af1-898e-4da5cca94380\/4.jpg?auto=webp&fit=crop&height=675&width=1200″] Utah is set to become the first state to prohibit the use of VPNs to avoid age-verification barriers after legislation goes into effect on Wednesday. Senate Bill 73 will hold websites liable for people who mask their location while in Utah and will effectively treat anyone who connects to a Utah VPN […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[67,226],"class_list":["post-1917921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-cnet-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1917921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1917921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1917921\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1917921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1917921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1917921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}