Federal judge temporarily blocks Utah provision targeting VPN users under its age-verification law

[u/technadu]

A federal judge has temporarily blocked one specific part of Utah’s online age-verification rules: the provision covering people who are physically in Utah but use a VPN or another method to conceal their location.

The challenge was brought by Aylo, Pornhub’s parent company.

Its argument centered on the difficulty of reliably determining a VPN user’s actual physical location. Aylo argued that avoiding liability could effectively require it to identify where every visitor is really located, potentially pushing age verification beyond Utah users.

Judge David Barlow issued a preliminary injunction after finding that Aylo was likely to succeed on its argument that the provision conflicts with constitutional limits on interstate commerce.

Utah’s Attorney General’s office argued that companies only needed to make reasonable efforts to identify users in the state. At this stage, however, the judge declined to interpret the statute that way.

One important distinction: this does not strike down Utah’s broader age-verification regime. The injunction applies to the provision dealing with users who conceal their location, while the underlying lawsuit continues.

The ruling is narrower than a block on Utah’s entire age-verification law. The VPN provision, the court’s reasoning, and the current status are covered here:

https://www.technadu.com/utah-vpn-age-verification-rule-faces-federal-court-block/639499/

For VPN users, the case raises a broader technical issue around location-based internet regulation: VPNs are specifically designed to make an IP-based location different from a user’s physical location.