Netflix has promised in a blog entry posted on January 14, Thursday that will take steps to prevent subscribers from hiding their location in order to unblock and access international movies and TV shows not offered in their home countries. The company plans to add tech to prevent users of virtual private networks (VPNs) who unblock international content via VPN providers offering the location-hiding services.
David Fullager is the company's Vice President of content-delivery architecture. He shared that in the near future Netflix users with unblockers and proxies will only be able to access content in the country they are currently in.
The company already has tech software to catch people who use VPNs, according The Globe and Mail. However, the streaming service has promised to use more powerful tech to prevent people from viewing TV shows not licensed in their own country. Netflix has made its services available to about 130 more nations.
A Netflix spokesperson shared in an email that the company claims it is evolving as tech used to detect and block proxies is also improving. However, it is has not provided details about how the new tech functions.
Netflix executives recently told The Globe and Mail that it is difficult to prevent geo-blocking now. That is because customers become discouraged that they cannot access content that is available in other countries but is unavailable where they are.
Neil Hunt is Netflix's chief product officer. He admitted at last week's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) that the situation will probably continue as a cat-and-mouse game. Netflix relies on blacklists of VPN, and once it catches VPNs it is useless for them to get a new IP address.
Watching video content through online streaming services is quickly becoming more popular. In Canada the number of hours of online TV watched weekly rose to 7 hours in 2015, from 2.8 hours in 2011.
Netflix users have been using VPNs to access blocked international content and sharing account passwords for quite a while, according to Wired. However, Netflix is now available in 190 countries. It is taking its latest steps to protect its company and content, and create global TV.