Many VPN providers advertise themselves specifically as being able to get around Netflix restrictions, or if not directly they pay YouTubers or websites to mention it in an ad.
VPNs are definitely making heavy use of residential IPs now, they often have routing rules in place that use non res IPs for most traffic, but traffic to Netflix, Prime, iPlayer etc. get routed via a res IP.
Also have no idea why they're cracking down on it so hard, thought it'd help them retain customers if anything.
Not that I want to give them any ideas, but surely the best solution would be to just lock the account down to the region the billing account is from? Although I think you can sometimes get a payment through with a fake address, it'd at lest mean people can't jump between countries at will.
> Not that I want to give them any ideas, but surely the best solution would be to just lock the account down to the region the billing account is from?
I'm pretty sure (based on dealing with DRM/geoIP restriction requirements in other spheres) that it's because the media companies are incredibly anal about enforcement on strict geographic lines. They don't care if your account is linked to a US credit card at a US billing address, despite how effective that is at ensuring that you are a US user (and how difficult it is to spoof). They are hellbent on the idea that no US-only content should ever be streamed to an IP address terminating at a non-US location. For them it's absolutely not about people or accounts - it's entirely a matter of geography.
Netflix could easily apply a rule based on the region of the billing account, and I am sure it would be vastly more effective than playing whack-a-mole with individual IP addresses. However, the media companies would undoubtedly still insist that they do strict geoIP restriction as well. And if Netflix did both, anybody who is traveling outside of their home country would find Netflix to be bereft of content; anyone who travelled frequently would find Netflix to be perfectly useless. By going all-in on geoIP, Netflix keeps the geoIP-fixated media companies happy, while ensuring that users see plenty of content even as they move from country to country.
I'd guess that Netflix is only upping their game on residential IPs etc now because the media companies are no longer happy and are leaning on them - VPN services are simply becoming too brazen about advertising the ability to bypass Netflix geo restrictions by clicking flags. Whenever it becomes this obvious to the media guys that anyone with a pulse and a credit card can circumvent Netflix's controls, they'll be pressed to 'do better' or lose their rights to content. Netflix takes some steps, catches some backlash, and the media companies are placated for a while.
> Why should I have to jump through hoops just because I happen to be located abroad for a week?
I could easily see a gray market in, essentially, location-specific "rebilling" springing up the same day as this. Want to watch a show that's not available in your country? Sign up here for an account billed through an address that can watch that show, with a small convenience surcharge.
The proper way to implement this restriction would be to only accept payments from a list of approved BINs (the first 6 digits of the credit/debit card). These numbers are strictly tied to the bank that's issuing the cards, the list is publicly available, and bypassing it is incredibly difficult. At the very least this control alone would be (very close to) ensuring that the card holder who's paying for the account has a legal right to live/work in the country in question (which is a requirement for opening a bank account in most places).
There are some BINs which you could associate with a territory, but don't provide this level of assurance about the card holder (those "burner" credit card providers for instance), but the list of exceptions is short enough to manage quite easily.
There are already service providers that implement this, f1.tv does for instance. Another peculiar example is India, where they just use phone numbers, because getting a phone number in India requires a KYC process, non-residents are only entitled to temporary services, and it's very hard to maintain your service if you leave the country.
VPNs are definitely making heavy use of residential IPs now, they often have routing rules in place that use non res IPs for most traffic, but traffic to Netflix, Prime, iPlayer etc. get routed via a res IP.
Also have no idea why they're cracking down on it so hard, thought it'd help them retain customers if anything.
Not that I want to give them any ideas, but surely the best solution would be to just lock the account down to the region the billing account is from? Although I think you can sometimes get a payment through with a fake address, it'd at lest mean people can't jump between countries at will.