Geo-blocking

Geo-blocking or geoblocking is the practice of restricting access to internet content 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).

Justification

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, and may not compare to the quality of the service's offering in the United States, or may not even be available in the user's country at all.