The EU’s highest court has ruled that VPNs are legal tools, and VPN companies cannot be blamed simply because users employ them to bypass geo-blocks.
The ruling stems from a copyright case involving Anne Frank’s writings.
A Belgian website published some of her manuscripts online but blocked visitors from the Netherlands, where parts of the work remain protected by copyright until 2037.
Anne Frank’s rights holders argued the site was still breaking the law because users could bypass the block with a VPN.
The court disagreed and ruled that a website using effective geo-blocking cannot be held responsible if some users circumvent it with a VPN.
The judges also affirmed that VPNs are legitimate privacy tools.
Remember the plastic straw debate?
I was curious how banning straws globally would stack up against @TheOceanCleanup’s current impact.
US beach cleanup data suggests straws make up just 0.005% of plastic pollution.
The Ocean Cleanup is now stopping 2–5% of global plastic inflow (and growing rapidly)
So our current impact is already ~400–1000x what a global straw ban could ever achieve!