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China jails VPN seller for over five years

December 22, 2017

A seller of Virtual Private Network (VPN) services has been sentenced in China for running an "illegal" business. It marks the most severe sentence yet to be handed out for helping users evade China's internet filters.

VPNs in China
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/epa/H. H. Young

The Chinese government's bid to clamp down on internet tools that circumvent the so-called "Great Firewall" was strengthened Friday after one local entrepreneur was sentenced to five-and-a-half years' prison for selling virtual private network (VPN) services.

Wu Xiangyang also was fined 500,000 yuan (€64,000, $76,000) by a court in the southern region of Guangxi for illegally running his business without a license between 2013 and June this year, according to government newspaper Procuratorate Daily.

Read more: Sieren’s China: Internet blockade only hurts China

According to local reports, Wu collected some 792,638 yuan in "illegal revenue" in the time he ran the service.

Companies in China hit by online censorship

02:36

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China's VPN crackdown

VPNs allow internet users to access regionally blocked websites by filtering their traffic through servers located in other countries.

Their usage has for years been widespread among China's 730 million internet users.

The government restricts locals from accessing online content it deems to be too subversive. This includes popular websites such as Google, Facebook and Twitter.

Read more: Facebook sneaks into China's online market

Wu's arrest follows an announcement by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) earlier this year that it was banning the sale of unlicensed VPN services.

One of most China's most popular services, Green VPN, told customers in June it had been ordered to close down. Many others have also shut without warning.

Meanwhile, US tech giants such as Apple and Amazon have reportedly limited their customers' access to such tools in what is widely seen as a move to appease the Chinese government and get ahead of any further online crackdowns.

dm/jil (AP, AFP, dpa)

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