From: Jeff@invalid.invalid 
  
 On 21/08/2025 15:20, Jethro_uk wrote: 
 > On Thu, 21 Aug 2025 11:19:51 +0100, Jeff Layman wrote: 
 > 
 >> On 20/08/2025 14:26, Mark Goodge wrote: 
 >>> On Tue, 19 Aug 2025 21:36:44 +0100, "billy bookcase"  
 >>> wrote: 
 >>> 
 >>> 
 >>>> "Martin Brown" <'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote in message 
 >>>> news:1082lki$3ucf5$1@dont-email.me... 
 >>>>> On 19/08/2025 10:23, Jethro_uk wrote: 
 >>>>>> 
 >>>>>> Dame Rachel de Souza told BBC Newsnight it was "absolutely a 
 >>>>>> loophole that needs closing" and called for age verification on 
 >>>>>> VPNs. 
 >>>>> 
 >>>>> Requiring age verification for a VPN is a long way short of a ban. 
 >>>>> 
 >>>>> Free VPNs outside of UK jurisdiction might be a problem though. 
 >>>> 
 >>>> Surely *all sites* outside of UK jurisdiction,  are *already* a bit of 
 >>>> a problem ? 
 >>>> 
 >>>> As I'd imagine a lot of them are. 
 >>> 
 >>> The government has a fair number of sanctions available against 
 >>> Internet service operators (including websites, web hosts, VPN 
 >>> operators and the like) that are based outside the UK. They key ones 
 >>> are the ability to prevent any operator with a UK presence providing 
 >>> them with any services. That includes credit card providers and all the 
 >>> big multinational tech companies (such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, 
 >>> Meta, etc). Any provider which sells to UK customers with payment made 
 >>> by credit card, debit card or Paypal (which between them covers 
 >>> practically all online payments these days) can have their source of UK 
 >>> funding cut off. And any app provider found on Google Play, the 
 >>> Microsoft Store or the Apple App Store is subject to UK law, because 
 >>> Google, Microsoft and Apple are. 
 >>> 
 >>> Paid-for VPNs could, therefore, be forced to introduce age verification 
 >>> if the government so chose, provided they accept UK credit cars and/or 
 >>> Paypal. And free VPNs on the app stores could be given the equivalent 
 >>> of PEGI 18, which would mean that the app store itself would have to 
 >>> follow its own age verification process to permit it to be installed. 
 >>> The only ones that the government would find it harder to attack are 
 >>> free services that can be signed up for on the general web, rather than 
 >>> requiring an app. But even then, a lot of the free services are 
 >>> actually the free tier of a service which has premium, paid-for options 
 >>> as an upgrade. Those paid-for services could be prevented from selling 
 >>> to the UK. And it may no longer be commercially viable for a VPN 
 >>> provider to offer a free tier to people who it cannot upsell to. 
 >> 
 >> Wouldn't paying by crypto get round the payment problem? Or is there 
 >> some way to bring such payment by crypto under the Money Laundering 
 >> regs, and get to the VPN/ISPs that way? 
 > 
 > I believe UK residents are required to register their crypto accounts. Or 
 > rather crypto operators that wish to operate in the UK are required to 
 > have all their customers pass a KYC check which amounts to the same thing. 
 > 
 > Whether there are outfits who would take cryto payments for one thing and 
 > offer a "free" VPN connection as a gift to the purchaser remains to be 
 > seen. 
  
 It might fall under The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 
 2023. See (b) at 
 . 
  
  
 -- 
 Jeff 
  
 --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05 
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