The IT Nerd

It seems that the Chinese government is not cool with VPNs as it gives Chinese citizens access to services that may not be approved by the government such as Google, Twitter and Facebook or news websites like The New York Times. I say that because according to The Verge that VPNs are pretty much verboten, or at least will be:

Citing sources familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reports that the Chinese government ordered state-run telecoms to begin blocking VPNs by February 1st. Earlier this year, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced that all VPN services would need to obtain government approval, as part of a “cleanup” of unauthorized internet connections.

Many Chinese internet users use VPNs to privately access websites that are blocked under China’s so-called “Great Firewall,” including restricted news sites and social media services like Facebook and Twitter. It is unclear whether the VPN block would affect foreign corporations, many of which use VPNs to secure data and circumvent web filters.

So how does this affect VPN providers? How does this affect tourists and visiting business users that may need VPN access to their companies? I reached out for comment from NordVPN and got this from NordVPN’s CMO, Marty P. Kamden:

“NordVPN stands for freedom of speech and free access to Internet around the world. When it comes to China, nothing is ever certain, and that’s the approach we took from the get-go. It’s not yet clear how the Chinese government is going to implement the ban from the technical point of view. However, we at NordVPN will do everything within our power to enable our users to continue enjoying the Internet freedom.”

We’ll have to see how this plays out, but if you’re going to China, plan accordingly.

This entry was posted on July 11, 2017 at 10:10 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags China. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.