Beijing tries to pull the plug on VPNs in internet ‘clean-up’
Chinese telecoms companies told to stop allowing the services, but foreign providers say business is thriving
Beijing is clamping down on internet access as it moves to further rein in virtual private networks – a popular method of bypassing the “Great Firewall” – that remain in a defiant cat-and-mouse game with authorities.
But some foreign VPN service providers said their business was thriving after mainland rivals were shut down, and that they were confident they could work around new technical barriers.
State-run telecoms firms China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom were ordered to stop allowing the use of VPNs by February 1, sources told Bloomberg. China Telecom declined to comment, while the other two did not reply to requests for comment.
It is the latest move in a 14-month campaign to crack down on unauthorised internet connections, such as VPNs, in order to strengthen the country’s “cyberspace sovereignty”, that will run until March 31, according to a Ministry of Industry and Information Technology notice.
VPNs are a popular way to skirt restrictions by rerouting internet traffic to other locations, allowing users on the mainland to access blocked sites with information that could be critical of the Communist Party such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and foreign news sites.