Maybank Kim Eng Securities analyst Pandu Anugrah voiced a similar opinion, saying that the government should set a clear and consistent policy to regulate not only Netflix but other apps and streaming websites.
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Earlier this month, the Los Gatos, Calif., Net TV service expanded the countries it is available in to 190.
Arif Prabowo, Telkom’s vice president for corporate communications said in a statement that Netflix needed to adjust to Indonesia’s regulations-namely a 2009 film law.
Netflix (NFLX – Get Report) stock is tumbling by 6.62% to $91.35 in late-afternoon trading on Wednesday, after Indonesia’s largest telecommunications provider blocked access to its video-streaming service today, The Wall Street Journal reports. When U.S.-based Uber Technologies launched its online car-hailing service in 2014, it came under fire by some regulators and taxi companies for not obtaining a public transportation license.
One of those 130 news countries is Indonesia, but rolling out there won’t go as smoothly as the company may have hoped.
Even though Jakarta has said it is not behind Telkom’s move to block the service, this decision confirms what many were waiting for regarding Netflix’s pending success as an global service – that many governments are going to have a problem with either Netflix’s content or its swift takeover (or both).
The post reads: “Can’t watch Netflix because of the block? While they are still small, we will teach them to follow the rules here”, he said. Indonesia’s large population makes it a point of interest to Netflix.
Another possibility is an aggressively censored version of Netflix in Indonesia. It also claimed it would be cracking down on virtual private network (VPN) use to prevent users from accessing foreign Netflix content.
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Telkom has asked Netflix to alter its content to comply to Indonesia’s regulations. Indonesia, with 256 million people, is the world’s fifth most populous country.
