Netflix to block proxies and unblockers worldwide

Netflix, the popular video streaming service has announced through a blog post that it will soon be blocking the use of all proxies and unblockers on the Netflix mobile and desktop app. After the recent rollout of the Netflix service in 130 new countries, the company has been receiving a lot of flak for not making all of its content available globally. Some of Netflix's original productions are also not available worlwide, and this has managed to upset a lot of Netflix enthusiasts. In the blog post dated January 14, Netflix says, "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. 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." 

Netflix users worldwide have started using popular VPNs and unblockers to access Netflix content that is not available in their countries. There are also some special apps like Smartflix that deploy a method similar to using a VPN, to give users access to all the restricted content on Netflix. To stop the usage of such methods, the Netflix blog post went on to say, "Some members use proxies or “unblockers” to access titles available outside their territory. 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."

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Adamya Sharma

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