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New Zealand ISP's Anti-Geoblocking Service Makes Waves
angry tapir writes New Zealanders and Australians are often blocked from using cheap streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu and instead at the mercy of local content monopolies for popular shows such as Game of Thrones. However, a New Zealand ISP, Slingshot, has caused a stir by making a previously opt-in service called 'Global Mode' a default for its customers. The new service means that people in NZ don't need to bother with VPNs or setting up proxies if they want to sign up to Netflix — they can just visit the site. The service has also caused a stir in Australia where the high price for digital goods, such as movies from the iTunes store, is a constant source of irritation for consumers.
You're not missing anything if you don't see GoT. It's just tits and swords.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Could use this south of the border. But it won't last long. "Spoofing" will be made illegal
I wish, some providers did that here in Austria, where I live.
It's the same story in many ways.
it is the same as stealing money from old women at knifepoint.
The Internet should be global.
I put the 't' in electrical engineering.
But how well will this work when IPv6 becomes ubiquitous?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Will local rights holders sue?
What about stuff that you need to get SKY TV for?
What about stuff that has import taxes?
Geo-blocking is a practice that needs to stop anyway, because it makes no sense. Take Steam as an example.
Up until two or three years ago, there were a good number of people who used proxies to buy content not from their region on Steam - this was particularly important for Germans (who are served the "low violence" version of games by default) and Australians/New Zealanders (who were far overcharged compared to the US/UK and could use a proxy to buy stuff from the US Steam store cheaper than they could in Aus/NZ). There was one problem with this system, though. Most publishers sold games on Steam's Russian store for far cheaper than they did on the US or UK stores - a friend of mine bought a 4-pack of copies of Dead Island (back when that was a new-ish game and the 4-pack was going for upwards of $60 on the US store) from Russia for like $20.
Then, Valve started cracking down on cross-region purchases, making it so that you could still add games from other regions but could not actually play them until your IP was detected as being in one of those regions. The problem was that it was applied so that more expensive regions had fewer restrictions - US-bought games can be played anywhere, as can AUS/NZ ones, but games purchased from Russia or a few other regions can't be played outside of those specific regions. This means that if you're from the US and go on vacation in Russia, you can play Counter-Strike GO while in Russia, but if you're Russian and go on vacation to the US you can't play CS:GO while in the US.
It's a ridiculous double-standard, and a counter to geo-blocking would remove a lot of it.
It's not a Geo-block designed to prevent Australians and New Zealanders from accessing the content, it's a whitelist designed to allow only US residents. The pricing in various other countries also varies greatly.
There is no valid argument as to why New Zealanders are paying much more for the same content as others in the world. We shouldnÃ(TM)t tolerate it.
The reason they have to pay more is that the producers think they can extract more money that way. One way to counteract that is to stop buying their wares.
We don't get overcharged anywhere near as much, but we do get a paltry fraction of the choice US citizens get for the same money.
Oh. Wrong article. Ive been up for 3 days straight SORRY!
South Africa needs this from an ISP.
We get raped on fee's, and other charges that *literally* don't exist anywhere else.
No! Bad AC! The cocaine is supposed to go in your battery, not your nostrils!
It will be changed real soon now and some low level guy will be let go.
You're not missing anything if you don't see GoT. It's just tits and swords.
and the best writing, performance, and production values of any television series currently on air. List of awards and nominations received by Game of Thrones
Most of the "indie" games on steam have no "presence" in say Australia
I thought the publisher (or the self-publishing developer) needed to at leats pay for a rating from the Australian Classification Board before a video game could be sold in Australia.
It is very interesting that globalization is welcomed when reducing cost to produce and increasing the profit, but when it is issue of globalization on purchase price companies resist and try to stop it.
There are fewer gamers in New Zealand than the United States, but I don't imagine that the NZ OFLC charges proportionally less than the US ESRB to get a game classified for objectionable content. This means it costs more per person to get a game approved for sale in a smaller country.
Why is New Zealand so perfect?! They have geothermal power, natural gas just shoots out of the ground, bits of it look like Lord of the Rings, and pretty much all the other bits are otherwise absolutely beautiful. Then there's zorbing. And now their ISPs apparently do things to give their customers quality service, rather than robbing them at every single possible turn! That's just not fair!
Might as well ask what will happen after the singularity.
All handwaving apologist bullshit and you know it! This practice needs to stop. The fact you've been modded up is just a sign that at least 2 people are fucking control freaks like you.
... if the service (as I suspect) routes your traffic to a given IP from another IP in the same country, this could backfire as some services are actually better from outside the country, some examples:
mlb.com (and other sports streaming services) which applies blackout restrictions if you're trying to watch games from inside the US or its territories. Watching baseball games from New Zealand, however, has no blackout restrictions.
Purchasing goods from sites that apply sales tax if you're browsing from the same country that the site is based in (more far fetched, they usually apply sales tax according to shipping destination).
Windows is a bonfire, Linux is the sun. Linux only looks smaller if you lack perspective.
I recommend Leisl Kaberry - The Titanian Chronicles. A fresh take on the fantasy genre with character and plot development that promises to span multiple novels in the series. I just read the first book and it leaves three distinct plots hanging. The author promises that each of these plots will continue for a number of novels with the second book due out December 2014.