this post was submitted on 03 May 2026
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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 4 days ago by LuminousLuddite@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] NotSteve_@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Why is a company or person that doesn’t exist physically in Utah at all responsible for adhering to Utah’s laws?

This line of thinking is dangerous as it allows companies to disregard any sane legislation as long as their servers are located in a "safe" place. A large portion of websites accessible from Canada are served from US servers, for example. American companies ignoring Canadian laws because they don't have Canadian-based servers would be a nightmare

If a company makes any money off users in a geographic area (which includes ad view revenue), they have to follow the rules there which is a GOOD thing - even if it's ridiculous in this case

Also endorsing governments selectively blocking websites is just bad for obvious reasons

[–] underisk@lemmy.ml 8 points 3 days ago

Allowing individual states the ability to dictate laws for the entire country is even more dangerous, for the non-hypothetical reasons we are currently experiencing.

And what you're describing is exactly what happens with international websites. Its why you can go find tons of websites with open media piracy being hosted in Russia. Are parties in Russia now subject to US laws?