Description
Utah's age verification law just got blocked. A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction against the part that tried to force sites to age-verify everyone, VPN or not.
Utah passed one of those age verification requirements for any site that might have adult content. Of course, a VPN gets around it. So they tried to make the law work anyway. They banned sites from telling people how to use VPNs, and required age checks if a site detected a VPN, even if it had no idea where the user actually was.
Aylo (the company that owns Pornhub) sued, and Judge David Barlow granted a preliminary injunction. He noted that perfect geolocation is impossible, so the law would effectively require age-verifying all users everywhere, not just in Utah.
The EFF called it a win for digital rights because the law would have forced adult sites to either know every visitor's physical location or verify every visitor's age just in case they might be in Utah. It's only a preliminary injunction while the case continues, but it's hard to see how the core problems will just go away.
Age verification is still an attack on privacy and free speech for everyone, not just kids. The problem is, these laws treat people connecting to servers outside the state as if the sites are pushing content into Utah. The Supreme Court got Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton wrong; strict scrutiny should apply. This ruling is a step, not the full win needed.
From the 11 October 2026 Bogosity Podcast.
Memorandum Decision and Order Granting Plaintiff’s Motion for a Preliminary Injunction https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/aylo-freesites-utah-division-consumer-protection-opinion.pdf
Court Agrees with EFF: Utah’s VPN Age Verification Law Demands a Technical Impossibility https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/10/court-agrees-eff-utahs-vpn-law-demands-technical-impossibility
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