GoKawiilFederal judge blocks Utah's anti-VPN age verification law
A federal court issued a preliminary injunction halting enforcement of Utah's SB 73, which required adult websites to detect and block VPN users or verify the physical location of visitors using privacy tools, and banned instructions on using VPNs to bypass age checks. The judge found the law likely violates the Constitution's restriction on states burdening people and businesses outside their borders, since it would effectively force sites to age-verify every visitor nationwide in case they were an obfuscating Utah resident.
GoKawiil's interpretation of the reporting above, not reported fact.
EFF argues the ruling affirms that lawmakers cannot mandate technically impossible tasks like reliably detecting VPN use, a precedent that could discourage similar anti-VPN age-verification bills in other states. The decision also reinforces that state-level internet regulations attempting to control traffic from anonymizing tools risk undermining privacy protections for users everywhere, not just within the regulating state.
- Utah's SB 73 would have required adult sites to block or geolocate VPN users and barred VPN-bypass instructions.
- A federal judge granted a preliminary injunction, finding the law likely unconstitutional for burdening out-of-state users and businesses.
- EFF had submitted formal comments opposing the law, calling its technical demands impossible to meet without harming global user privacy.
Source: eff.org — Rindala Alajaji, 2026-10-01
Published there as: “Court agrees with EFF: Utah's VPN law demands a technical impossibility”
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