Netflix Says Proxies Won't Let You Bypass Country Restrictions Any Longer

It's never a great feeling when you attempt to load a video, only to find it's not available in your country. This happens somewhat frequently on sites like YouTube, which gives you a pointed message regarding the availability of the video. Netflix has similar restrictions, though instead of telling you why, it will just show the movie or show as unavailable. If you know the movie you want is available in another country, you can use a proxy to mask your location, and unlock the video. Unfortunately, this method won't work for long.

For years, people have been using proxies to trick Netflix into giving them content that they would otherwise be unable to access. It seemed like a a pretty good solution for everyone. Netflix could tell studios that they're only offering content where they are allowed to, and determined customers could find a way to watch it. Unfortunately, it looks as though studios have caught on, and added some pressure to the streaming giant.

In a blog post, Netflix announced today that it would be taking measures to prevent users from using proxies to access content that is unavailable in their current region. For some users, this is the only way to access Netflix at all, due to unavailability in their country.

While we don't know exactly what measures the company is taking, they are certain that in the coming weeks, proxies will no longer be useful in getting around their regional restrictions. They did also say that they are working on getting a unified library that will be available to everyone, but current antiquated licensing practices make that impossible at this time.

Source: Netflix