There’s bad news for anyone who uses a proxy service to access Netflix content from outside their own country: the company says in a blog post that it will be blocking proxies within the “coming weeks” …
Outdated licensing agreements with content owners – still based on the old days of selling content to local TV networks – mean that Netflix offers access to different TV shows in different countries. Many Netflix users use a proxy app like VPN Unlimited to spoof the location of their device, especially to gain access to the huge U.S. catalog from elsewhere.
Netflix has so far made only the most cursory of attempts to block these, meaning that both iOS apps and browser plugins have generally worked. With the recent rollout to more than 130 new countries, however, it’s likely that content owners have required the company to take real steps to tackle the issue.
The move will be something of a gamble on the company’s part. Many Netflix subscribers outside the US pay for membership specifically to get earlier access to shows first launched in the US, and may now cancel their subscriptions – but Netflix will be hoping that this is more than offset by revenue from the new countries.
Netflix was one of the services featured in a recent Apple TV promotion while Apple continues to work on developing its own streaming content package.
Photo: The Verge
