For those who (like me) missed the essential key word in the OP's title:

This ruling is about copyright, and seems mostly unrelated to recent conversations about escaping censorship and surveilance, and the overall final throes of the open web.

It's still pretty important since the lawsuit filed by the Anne Frank Fonds could be caricatured as "if this content is illegal in our country, it should not be on the Internet in other countries, because our citizens can still circumvent the publisher's geofence and access it" which would have wild consequences if that line of thought was applied.

But, still:

> At its core, the case forced Europe's top judges to answer a highly technical question: if a publisher actively tries to block visitors from a specific country, are they still breaking the law if a user sneaks past the digital border using circumvention software?

> According to the CJEU, the answer is no.

Could be conceived to have a tenuous link to the current debate on censorship, surveilance, etc.

Somewhat related to this same debate on censorship:

French regulators order block of Polymarket's website [0]

> The French gambling regulator said the site's continued availability constituted advertising. A ban on financial transactions to the site was already in place.

After failing to compel Polymarket to geoblock France, it's crazy that French "regulators" can just order ISPs to block a website without any judicial review just because the mere existence of it on the internet constitutes "advertising" to French people.

It seems like the EU in general is struggling badly with how to control internet access. Whether it's blocking VPNs, requiring access to private chats, or just blocking websites completely.

[0] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2026/07/17/france-b...