14 DAY TRIAL // Netflix has announced it plans to block VPN connections in the upcoming feature, as part of its licensing deals it has set up with different content providers.
When Netflix launched in the US, Internet users started using US-based VPNs to be able to sign up and watch their favorite movies in their browser.
When Netflix started expanding to other countries, users continued to try and fool the streaming service into thinking that they were from another country, and thus get access to shows not yet available in their territory.
After a week ago Netflix announced its expansion to 130 new countries, most users had the unpleasant surprise to find that Netflix wasn't that awesome as US users made it look, having access to a very limited movie catalog, which in many places was inferior to what local, national competitors were offering.
Current exclusive content delivery deals forced Netflix to take this decision
Because Netflix took its sweet time expanding to other countries, film and television studios have already licensed their TV shows and movies to other streaming services available in those countries. Even Netflix sold the rights for "House of Cards," a show it produced, to other movie streaming services.
Now the company has found itself in the undesirable position of having to ban VPN users to be able to follow through on content delivery deals it signed years ago, when a worldwide expansion was not yet a realistic goal.
"Given the historic practice of licensing content by geographic territories, the TV shows and movies we offer differ, to varying degrees, by territory. In the meantime, we will continue to respect and enforce content licensing by geographic location," said David Fullagar, Netflix Vice President of Content Delivery Architecture.
Homogenizing the Netflix catalog may take a few years
To enforce this ban, Netflix will be hiring companies specialized in such services, as Ted Sarandos, Netflix Chief Content Officer, said in an interview with The Globe and Mail four days ago: "[We] continue to rely on blacklists of VPN exit points maintained by companies that make it their job."
He also added that "once [VPN providers] are on the blacklist, it’s trivial for them to move to a new IP address and evade." Mr. Sarandos is hinting that his company will have to play a cat and mouse game with these VPN providers, one that it won't have to entertain for more than a few years, as exclusive content delivery deals expire, and it can then go on to purchase and deliver the same movie catalogs to all territories.
Besides VPNs, proxy servers will be banned as well.