Netflix Begins VPN Crackdown

Netflix has announced that it is beginning its first widescale crackdown on VPN ‘piracy’ to view geoblocked content in other countries. David Fullagar, Vice President of Content Delivery Architecture at Netflix, revealed the move on Thursday evening (14th January) via the Netflix blog.

Fullagar blames existing territorial licensing agreements for the move, but expresses the hope that, one day, Netflix will be able to offer the same content to all users on a global scale. Until that happens, though, it will no longer turn a blind eye to customers that bypass global content locks using VPN services.

“If all of our content were globally available, there wouldn’t be a reason for members to use proxies or “unblockers” to fool our systems into thinking they’re in a different country than they’re actually in,” Fullagar writes. “We are making progress in licensing content across the world and, as of last week, now offer the Netflix service in 190 countries, but we have a ways to go before we can offer people the same films and TV series everywhere.”

“Some members use proxies or “unblockers” to access titles available outside their territory,” Fullagar adds. “To address this, we employ the same or similar measures other firms do. This technology continues to evolve and we are evolving with it. That means in coming weeks, those using proxies and unblockers will only be able to access the service in the country where they currently are. We are confident this change won’t impact members not using proxies.”

The move comes in the wake of Ted Sarandos, Chief Content Officer for Netflix, claiming at CES 2016 last week that it was “not obvious” how to block VPN usage to sidestep geoblocking.