Gemini’s VPN workaround stops working for some users in Russia

Google's Gemini AI service has experienced a disruption in Russia, impacting some users who tried to access it through a VPN, according to reports from Kod.ru, a Russian tech outlet. This issue coincided with the launch of Gemini 3.7 Flash, an updated version of the AI model. Experts suggest that the problem could arise from how VPN services function or how Google identifies users' locations.

Many VPN services typically exclude google.com and other Google services from the encrypted tunnel to enhance speed. This means that when users access Google services directly, their real IP addresses are revealed, leading Google to determine the user's location within Russia, despite their connection being via a VPN server in a different country.

Google has also increasingly utilized a blend of behavioral signals, including location data from Google Maps, to ascertain a user's location. If multiple users in Russia consistently connect through a specific VPN server, Google's algorithms may start associating that server with the Russian jurisdiction, despite the physical location of the server being elsewhere.

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