Roskomnadzor has decided to ban six additional VPN providers in Russia because circumventing the banning creates circumstances for unlawful conduct, the regulator reported on their website, TASS reports.
According to the message, six additional VPN providers that breach Russian law were blocked on September 2 in line with the norms of centralized administration of the public communications network, as approved by a decree of the Russian Federation’s government dated February 12, 2020.
It was reported that the regulator was referring to Hola! VPN, ExpressVPN, KeepSolid VPN Unlimited, Nord VPN, Speedify VPN, and IPVanish VPN services.
According to the agency, the use of blocking bypass services preserves access to banned material and resources and creates circumstances for criminal actions such as drug distribution, child pornography, extremism, and suicidal inclinations.
White lists have been created to avoid limitations from harming Russian enterprises that use VPN services in ongoing technical operations and do not break the law. The agency received letters from 64 industrial companies, 27 of which utilize VPNs to support 33 workflows, according to the study. Over 100 IP addresses have been requested to be whitelisted.
On June 30, Roskomnadzor requested that the usage of the aforementioned VPN services be reported to the Public Communications Networks Monitoring Center. VyprVPN and Opera VPN were previously blocked by the agency.
