Deng Jiewei was charged with illegally selling programs known as virtual private networks (VPNs) in Chaina
VPNs are illegal in China because they let people avoid government monitoring of what they are doing.
The government pressure led Apple to remove 60 apps from its Chinese app store that let people browse the web via a VPN. Apple was heavily criticized for the decision.
The sentence is part of a larger crackdown on the use of VPNs in China
Deng started selling VPNs in late 2015 and was arrested in August 2016 for selling software which lets users “visit foreign websites that could not be accessed by a mainland IP address”, reported the South China Morning Post.
