A technological feature that restricts access to online content or a service, based on the geographic location of a user’s IP address or other location identifier.
Commentary:
- Geoblocking (or geofencing) may be used when a government has prohibited access to certain content or activities from its territory (such as sexually explicit content or online gambling), or a particular piece of content is restricted by a private licensing agreement (such as media streaming rights, which may differ from place to place).
- Geoblocking is typically used when the content otherwise does not violate a platform’s terms, and is used to keep the content available to users in jurisdictions where it is not prohibited.
- As geofencing is often based on user IP address, use of a VPN may allow a user to spoof their location and access content or services that are geoblocked in their country