Geo-Restriction

 

Have you ever heard the term geo-restriction or geo-blocking? If you are hearing it for the first time, the term refers to the blocking of content by the owner. When you visit a website and a page, and instead of showcasing the content, it displays a message informing you are not able to visit the webpage, bingo! That's exactly when you have encountered a geo-restriction issue.

In layman's terms, when the provider of the content does not want you to access their services, they use this to restrict their content. Or, in another instance, when they want to limit their services and platform to a particular area and only want it to be broadcasted or advertised in specific regions or countries. The question that arises here is why would anyone want to do that? Wouldn't they want to advertise their content worldwide?

The answer is no, and it is quite simple to figure out. First off, the providers of the content, for instance, BBC, YouTube, and Netflix do not usually have the rights to display the content but to broadcast them only. The choice is solely upon the copyright owner whether to broadcast the content in a particular country or not or worldwide. Secondly, the licensing rights that the copyright owners require to display the content and is provided by the specific country are rather costly and if one country's licensing rights can get that much costly, imagine buying the rights of a few more countries. Phew! Acquiring the licensing rights worldwide can be an insane amount, one would not even want to calculate.

There is another tactic used by the providers in terms of pricing of their services according to the countries. That's right! Oftentimes a similar service's price differs from one country to another's on the basis of their market. This unquestionably helps them make huge profits.

Other times, geo-restriction comes up in terms of legal requirements. The national and international laws of certain countries permit particular businesses to operate in their countries. A perfect example to quote here would be gambling, which is banned in specific countries.

Another interesting scenario is the use of this technique by sports websites when airing their events live. How? Olympics, a worldwide sports event, is quite an extended one, and a country's local coverage of the Olympics is fixated on the particular sport that the country's athletes are participating in while all the rest are disregarded or dismissed.

But what if you are facing geo-restrictions and wish to find a solution in this regard? Among a few answers is using VPN- Virtual Private Network. What does it do? It simply conceals the IP address you're browsing from encrypting your internet connection and making sure your data remains private. It is most helpful while you are using public Wi-Fi and doubts being spotted or hacked by computer criminals. Using a VPN server would help you access the websites that are geo-restricted in your country or region. Plus, connecting to a country's VPN server allows you to get access to the websites that are only available there. Interesting right! And is using a VPN legal? The good news is it is indeed!