Australians Urged To Spoof IP Addresses For Better Prices

angry tapir writes "Choice, a prominent Australian consumer advocacy group, has urged Australians to obfuscate their IP address to avoid geo-blocking and use US forwarding addresses to beat high IT prices. Australia is currently in the middle of parliamentary inquiry into the country's disproportionately high prices for technology. Choice also suggested setting up US iTunes accounts and using surrogate US addresses for forwarding packages from American stores. Choice has noted previously that Australians pay 52 per cent more for digital music downloads on iTunes compared to US users."

Comments

Tor and using a specific exit node (and SSL!)

[Anonymous Coward]

This is how I ended up buying Battlefield 3 premium on Origin for a fraction of the cost (1500 INR (=22 EUR) instead of 50 EUR) by pretending to be from India.

Re:Tor and using a specific exit node (and SSL!)

[Anonymous Coward]

And this is the real reason for DRM, not piracy.

Re:Tor and using a specific exit node (and SSL!)

[2fuf]

Yes, it's the reason for DRM and at the same time the reason for piracy ;-)

Good riddance to geo-blocking

[madsdyd]

I live in Denmark, and recently spent 30 minutes to try and buy an english e-book online.

Found it at 3 different retailers (US, UK, Australia), that refused to sell it to me (add it to the basket), because of my location.

Then found it at 2 additional retailers, that allowed me to add it to a basket, then accepted my credit-card information, before refusing to actually sell it to me.

Then I got sort of mad and decided to break a 15 year old principle on not pirating stuff. Went to google, and had the ebook literally 30 seconds later! 10 seconds later on my device, and I could start reading.

What on earth are they thinking!

Oh, and I then later wrote the agent for the writer in question here in Denmark, and in the UK to offer payment. I have not heard a word from the UK agent, and the Danish one just confirmed that they do not sell the english language version of that writer in Denmark as an ebook.

Fools, really. And, they are probably, as I write this, banging on the door to the parliament, requiering stricter copyright laws.

Fools.

Re:Good riddance to geo-blocking

[Chatsubo]

Stuff like this is especially maddening when they require you to ship digital products.

I had an experience recently where I got a gift voucher for Amazon. I went there knowing a game I wanted would be about the value of the voucher. To my delight I found a digital-only version for the right price.

"Sweet, I'll be playing this puppy in an hour or so!". No beans. Digital copy not available in my country.

WHAT?! Why?! I can go down the road and buy this title legitimately in my country for the same price!

Then I was going: OK, I'll buy the frikkin physical thing then. Only to find shipping the damn disc to my country was going to cost the entire price of the game. So to use my voucher I was going to have to pay the entire price of the voucher for shipping. Something I could, once again, just go do at my corner store.

Finally I contacted a US-based friend and just shipped the disc to him for no shipping charge, and had him email me the serial. Then I found a digital copy of the data myself.

Hint: Never give foreigners vouchers for online retailers. It's a burden to the recipient.

Legacy of Regional Pricing

[StoneyMahoney]

Regional differences in pricing stem from pre-globalisation economics. With no overlap between regional markets, prices would be set on a per-market basis and never the twain did meet. In a post-globalisation Internet-levelled playing field, regional price differences make no little sense for purely-digital products, except where national sales-related taxes differ. The only reason to maintain these regional price variations to artificially inflate profit margins at the expense of the consumer.

In theory, the libertarian free-marker doctrine should cause this price difference to level out fairly quickly once the market starts to take advantage of (and offense to) these cross-border variations. Let's see if that theory works in practice...

Anyone want to bet on legislation increasing to prevent cross-region sales instead?

It's not just games

[mjwx]

It's not just games that we buy from overseas for cheap. Phones, cameras, computers, car and bike parts. All because local distributors used to have us by the balls with pricing. Games were A$90, Movies and CD's A$30 a piece and considering the AUD has been above 1 USD for the last few years, pricing like this is just taking the piss.

Well no more, I can order just about anything and get it shipped here for less. I order games from the UK for half the price of local games, DVD box sets that retail for A$75 I purchase for 11 pounds (AUD$17), My Canon Ixus 230 came from Hong Kong for A$100 less than here, I bought myself a laptop from the US, US$899 (A$840, a very favourable exch rate at the time) and got it shipped over tax free (personal imports under A$1000 are not subject to GST, note this is now A$900), Asus didn't even sell this model here but the previous model was A$1400. Even retailers are getting in on this very sweet action, JB HiFi and even Harvey Norman are selling "direct import" cameras and games and giving the middle finger to distributors.

You think in this environment the distributors would have learned and instituted fair pricing... Well they haven't and as much as the bang on about it, no one in parliament will lift a finger to protect them. Suffer in your jocks you smarmy, self centred bastards. Now we just need to allow more used cars to be imported, an Australian Nissan 350z costs A$30-40K, an imported Japanese Nissan 350GT costs A$20-30K imported and they are practically the same car (the 350z was down-tuned compared to the 350GT) but you are only allowed to import cars on the SEVS list (Specialist and Enthusiast Vehicles) which were never available for sale in Oz so I couldn't buy a cheap JDM Honda Integra Type R.

This is how I ended up buying Battlefield 3 premium

My sympathies sir, I too bought Battlefield 3 before realising how crap of a game it was.

Re:Willful Misrepresentation is a Crime

[bloodhawk]

But we are not misrepresenting at all, I am legitimately utilising a VPN Service. I am not saying I am something I am not. It isn't our fault companies are morons and rely on a VPN address to try and work out what country I am from. IP Addressing was never intended for this use.

Re:Here is where you are wrong

[mcgrew]

The musicians don't want to be in control of getting their songs sold or booking performances. They want the "industry".

Where do you get these "data"? How many musicians do you know personally? I know quite a few, and none of them would touch an RIAA contract with a ten foot pole, despite labels courting them.

Face it, music is full of people who would be homeless and broke despite their talent

It's also full of people who are multimillionaires despite their lack of talent. If you're good, you'll get gigs.

The only one's that don't

You should have paid more attention in class, son.