Geo-blocking

Geo-blocking or geoblocking is a form of technological protection measure where access to Internet content is restricted based upon the user's geographical location. In a geo-blocking scheme, the user's location is calculated using geolocation techniques, such as checking the user's IP address against a blacklist or whitelist; the result of this check is used to determine whether the system will approve or deny access to the content. The term is most commonly associated with its use to restrict access to premium multimedia content on the internet, such as films and television shows, primarily for copyright and licensing reasons. There are other uses for geoblocking, such as blocking malicious traffic or to enforce price discrimination, location-aware authentication, fraud prevention, and online gambling (where gambling laws vary by region).

The ownership of exclusive territorial rights to content may differ between regions, requiring the providers of the content to disallow access for users outside of their designated region; for example, although an online service, HBO Now is only available to residents of the United States, and cannot be offered in other countries because its parent company Time Warner had already licensed exclusive rights to HBO programming to different broadcasters (such as in Canada, where HBO licensed its back-catalogue to Bell Media), who may offer their own, similar service specific to their own region and business model (such as CraveTV). For similar reasons, the library of content available on subscription video on demand services such as Netflix may also vary between regions, or the service may not even be available in the user's country at all.

Geoblocking can also be used to enforce price discrimination within online stores, forcing users to buy products online from a foreign version of a site where prices may be unnecessarily higher than those of their domestic version. The "Australia Tax" has been cited as an example of this phenomenon, which has led to governmental pressure to restrict how geoblocking can be used in this manner in the country.

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