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According to reports coming out of Australia, Netflix seems to be making good on its promise of blocking users who use VPNs and proxies to access the company’s U.S. only videos from outside the country. People in Australia, who use such content unblocking services to access the video streaming service, seem to be getting a deliberate message informing them that the content they’re trying to access is meant for the US market only, and hence not available Down Under. Apparently, the message reads “You seem to be using an unblocker or proxy. Please turn off any of these services and try again”. While the targeted blocking is currently affecting a small proportion of viewers in the country, the company is expected to roll out its blockade to all users everywhere in the country soon enough.
The company that’s reporting this issue, runs uFlix, a service that allows users to unblock region-locked content for Australian residents. The company says that while only a small percentage of users are currently being blocked by Netflix, it expects the streaming giant to roll out the blockade to more users in a number of countries. According to uFlix, “We are working on a solution to get around these new measures and apologize for the inconvenience to those who are currently only getting Australian Netflix”. It is not immediately known if Netflix has started blocking content in other regions globally as well, but it seems fairly plausible, especially as the company has vowed to crack down of VPN and proxy users worldwide.
Netflix of course, earlier this month at the CES trade show in Las Vegas, announced a major expansion plan that saw its operations go live in 130 new countries. China, however, continues to remain conspicuous by its absence from the rather long list, but rumors have claimed that the company is trying its best to work out a solution with the regulators in the People’s Republic. Having revealed its global expansion plans, Netflix announced that it will be starting to crack down on VPN and proxy users, so it’s not as if one can complain that the company hasn’t given any prior warnings before implementing the crackdown. It remains to be seen what comes of this, but users caught in this conflict will be hoping that unblocking services round the world will be able find a way to bypass the latest measure by Netflix as soon as possible.