Putin Bans VPNs in Russia

The Chinese government is laser-focused on wiping out the ability to remain anonymous on the internet. So by February 2018, China will block all VPNs. But as TechCrunch reports, they are not alone. Russian President Putin just approved a new law that will ban the use of VPNs in the country beginning in November.

Virtual private networks offer a convenient and cheap way to hide your internet activity, protect your privacy, and overcome any location-based blocks. So you can see why China wants them banned. For Russia, the law is banning all means of accessing the internet anonymously because the government believes anonymity allows access to illegal content.

According to Freedom House, the so-called Yarovaya's Law was presented as a package of "antiterrorist legislative amendments," but ultimately allows much greater access by the Russian government to users' data as well as undermining the security of encrypted communications. In other words, if the Kremlin doesn't like content, it can more easily take it down and take action against the individual who posted it once this law goes into effect on November 1.

How well such a ban works depends on how it is policed. China will place the responsibility of blocking all VPNs on local ISPs. The Russian government will likely do the same considering last year it passed a law demanding ISPs retain a record of user data for a year. Another law passed in 2015 also demanded all Russian citizen user data be stored on servers within Russia. Taken altogether, it's very difficult to hide online in Russia, and it's only going to get harder come November.

UPDATE: The VPN ban in China resulted in Apple removing VPN apps from its App Store there. During an Aug. 1 earning call, Apple CEO Tim Cook said "We would obviously rather not remove the apps, but like we do in other countries, we follow the law wherever we do business.

"In this particular case...we're hopeful that over time the restrictions that we're seeing are loosened because innovation really requires freedom to collaborate and communicate, and I know that that is a major focus there," he continued.

About Matthew Humphries

Senior Editor

I started working at PCMag in November 2016, covering all areas of technology and video game news. Before that I spent nearly 15 years working at Geek.com as a writer and editor. I also spent the first six years after leaving university as a professional game designer working with Disney, Games Workshop, 20th Century Fox, and Vivendi.

Read Matthew's full bio

Read the latest from Matthew Humphries

• Adobe Drops $20B Acquisition of Collaborative Design Platform Figma
• Roadrunner Is a Reusable Vertical Take-Off and Landing Attack Drone
• Microsoft Wants Xbox Game Pass on PlayStation, Nintendo Consoles
• Microsoft Is Testing a Windows 11 Energy Saver Mode
• Google Drive's Clever Document Scanning Feature Finally Comes to iOS
• More from Matthew Humphries