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New Zealand ISP Offers "Global Mode" So Users Can Circumvent Geo-Restrictions

Posted by samzenpus on from the one-price-for-all dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Many content sites restrict access from different markets or have variable pricing for downloads in different markets. New Zealand-based ISP Slingshot is now offering a 'global mode' that lets customers hide their location. This means they can access overseas online services that would normally be restricted to specific markets."

11 of 126 comments (clear)

  1. Hum interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Seems like (N/U)SA needs to go there and free the shit out of them from that regime whatever they have. Do they also have oil?

  2. More importantly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    this comment is not available in your country

  3. And that's the way it should be done by Parsiuk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There are no borders in the Internet. End of story.

    1. Re:And that's the way it should be done by Zemran · · Score: 5, Funny

      ... and the USA is the land of the free.

      --
      I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
  4. Finally a good ISP service. by eddy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sound great. Wish my ISP had the same. All this 'free market' is bullshit when it's perverted with artificial region restrictions. Here's the REALITY of it straight out of my inbox:

    This is an important announcement for our MYREGIONHERE users regarding pricing on the Green Man Gaming website. We are always reviewing our policies here and have decided to make a change that will help us deliver the value you expect from GMG. All MYREGIONHERE users will notice that prices on the Green Man Gaming website are now shown as GBP (£) instead of USD ($). Of course, this is a change and change doesn't suit everyone, but we hope that this will enable us to stay competitive and continue to serve your market diligently. Thanks for your continued support The GMG Team

    Some times even if you can actually buy the product, you can't use it because there are further region checks down the line (e.g steam refusing out-of-region keys).

    --
    Belief is the currency of delusion.
    1. Re:Finally a good ISP service. by AK+Marc · · Score: 5, Interesting

      My wife loves Sims. She bought Sims3 in the US before we moved out of the country. She later downloaded an expansion. The expansions are country coded. She had to return it, then buy it from a US server, lying about her address. It didn't do a location check on her IP, so she could download it, but she had to lie to access a computer service to buy it, so a felon she is, if anyone ever cared to prosecute that particular crime.

      It's amazing how hard they made it to buy things. At least region coded players are gone (Even if the media is still player-coded), because there is no more PAL/NTSC with HDTV. I've never seen a TV, US or otherwise that couldn't play any HDMI source, even if not "proper" to the region. For all the ills of HDMI, I no longer have to look for PAL/NTSC when buying components to go with my mix of media. Though an Xbox will only play media of its region, even if my PAL Xbox works fine on my NTSC HDTV over HDMI, I must still buy PAL games. So any US-only release is out, and my Wii is US, so I have to buy mail-order from the US, ship it to a US address (none of the major media peddlers will sell out of the country), and have it re-shipped to get to me.

      Games like World of Warcraft let you buy from anywhere and play like you are anywhere. Someone in the US can buy a Europe region game and play Europe servers.

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
  5. What is global mode? by A+beautiful+mind · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Is it some proxy? Is it a weirdly labeled block of IPv4 addresses? Is it some DNS level trickery?

    --
    It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
    Be yourself no matter what they say
    1. Re:What is global mode? by geekmux · · Score: 5, Funny

      Is it some proxy? Is it a weirdly labeled block of IPv4 addresses? Is it some DNS level trickery?

      Yes, it is a proxy. It's got a rather odd name, you might have heard of it before.

      They call it "PRISM".

  6. Region encoding is illegal in NZ by Danious · · Score: 5, Informative

    In NZ the Commerce Commission has long held that region encoding is illegal under NZ law. What that effectively means is that when you buy a DVD player in NZ it is already chipped by the manufacturer to play any region, and you can buy DVD's from any region and play them completely legally. Basically it's a necessary move by a country so small that we have to ride the coat-tails of other countries for content distribution.

  7. Re:PIRACY! by niltiac1705 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Except that national law on consumer rights trumps terms of use conditions. It's not just streaming. Another example might be buying songs from iTunes. Apple charges Australian customers more per song than US customers (and probably NZ customers too but I don't know the situation there). Apple has been asked to explain itself to an Australian Senate committee and the matter is not yet resolved. In the mean time, I don't think I'm breaking any law or moral code by maintaining a US iTunes account so that I don't have to pay higher prices. It's really no different to parallel imports of physical goods. I don't think I'm doing anything wrong by getting my friend in San Francisco to buy Clinique foundation and post it to me either. It costs twice as much in Australia for the exact same product. It is Clinique (and Apple) who are in the wrong here as far as I'm concerned.

  8. Re:won't help with audible by Merls+the+Sneaky · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If they won't sell it to you, pirate it. That's obviously what they want you to do.