Netflix has promised to make things hard for viewers that use proxy servers to access content from other countries. Fullgar added Netflix is “confident” this won’t impact members who do not use proxies.
Advertisement
Netflix launched in America in 2007 as a mail-order DVD service but has been shifting from recycling old shows and movies to producing more original content, with its shows such as “House of Cards”, “Orange Is The New Black” and the docuseries “Making a Murderer”.
Netflix on Thursday announced a new effort to crack down on proxies or “unblockers”, like VPN services, which allow users to fool the company’s systems into thinking they’re in a different country and access additional content not available where they live.
Netflix users will soon be unable to use proxies or unblockers to access content that’s now unavailable in their country.
The practice of streaming Netflix from a fake location, in order to view shows and films normally banned in one’s home country, was listed as strictly forbidden in the Terms of Use pertaining to this service.
At CES 2016, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings announced a massive global expansion of the most popular video-on demand service.
The company now licenses content by geographic territories, meaning the TV shows and movies available on the service differ, to varying degrees, by region.
A blog update from David Fullagar, Vice President of Content Delivery, was sympathetic about users’ desires to get more from their membership.
“Over time, we anticipate being able to do so”, Fullagar said in a release. But for now, the company will “continue to respect and enforce content licensing by geographic location”, he said.
Advertisement
Netflix only mentions proxies but it’s very likely the company will also take measures against VPN or DNS services that are used to circumvent geo-blocks.
