Russia's State Duma passes bill banning Internet anonymizers

Russian State Duma approved the third (final) reading of legislation outlawing virtual private network (VPN) services and other technologies that let internet users bypass Moscow’s ever-expanding blacklist of banned websites.

Lawmakers in the State Duma, the lower house of Russia’s Federal Assembly, voted on Friday in favor of adopting amendments regulating VPN services, censorship circumvention software and other so-called 'anonymizers'.

The legislation would ban the use of any software that enables access to digital content otherwise barred by Moscow’s censors if adopted.