STATE-BASED ONLINE RESTRICTIONS: AGE-VERIFICATION AND THE VPN OBSTACLE IN THE LAW

Abstract

Since the inception of the internet, the availability of online pornography to minors has been a major concern, and the federal government has tried and failed to effectively prohibit minors’ access to these materials online. Some states have enacted legislation to force commercial entities distributing this harmful material online to enact reasonable age-verification. These “porn” statutes may be subject to constitutional challenges on the basis of overbreadth and privacy. Outside of potential constitutional challenges, these laws are indicative of a potential national trend in state-created online pornography restrictions, and the issues of ineffectiveness and inconsistency present within the laws themselves merit an analysis. Additionally, this paper will use these recent laws and their issues as a basis to explain the place of virtual private networks (“VPNs”) in the law. Particularly, VPNs are the most common method to circumvent state-enforced online regulation and yet they tend to be ignored or overlooked by statutes despite their popularity. Causing VPN companies to profit from these “porn” law restrictions, by giving online, and potentially minor, users the ability to ignore most age-verification measures put in place by these laws. Keywords: State-Based, Online Restrictions, Age-Verification, VPN