Netflix Implements Promised Ban on VPN and Proxy Services
posted Sunday Jan 24, 2016 by Scott Ertz
From a consumer point of view, one of the annoyances about Netflix is that, if you are not in the USA, there is a lot of content missing. This is because many content producers license their content either exclusively for the US market, or have different streaming agreements for other countries. This means that a non-American will be missing some of the best content that Netflix has to offer.
To combat this, many people in other areas have begun using proxy or VPN services to make it appear to Netflix that they are in the US. This might seem like a good thing for the watchers, but it is a massive problem for Netflix. Particularly, it is a legal issue for them, as they are technically violating their licensing deals.
Because of this, Netflix has promised to begin blocking VPN and proxy services from accessing their system all together. This week, it appears that they have begun making good on their threat/promise, as users around the world have begun reporting messages on their devices.
You seem to be using an unblocker or proxy. Please turn off any of these services and try again.
This will not be an easy road for the company to travel, though. Blocking proxies only works so long as they are known, and changing IP ranges is an easy task for one of these services. In fact, several users who have initially reported the new, forced outages have begun reporting that, if they used a different server, the error went away. That means that, even for the known proxies, there are gaps in the knowledge, meaning that the blocks are only partially successful.
Having partial blocks could actually open Netflix up to further legal issues. It is one of the reasons why companies often avoid even considering these types of blocks. It will be interesting to see if they continue to pursue this block or consider another alternative.
