Geo-blocking

"Geofilter" redirects here. For image filter feature in the mobile application Snapchat, see Snapchat § Core functionality. For the general principle of applying GIS, see Geofencing.

Geo-blocking, geoblocking or geolocking is technology that restricts access to Internet content based upon the user's geographical location. In a geo-blocking scheme, the user's location is determined using Internet geolocation techniques, such as checking the user's IP address against a blacklist or whitelist, GPS queries in the case of a mobile device, accounts, and measuring the end-to-end delay of a network connection to estimate the physical location of the user.[1][2] The IP address location tracking, a field pioneered by Cyril Houri, the inventor of one of the first systems capable of identifying a user's geographical location via their IP address.[3] is typically used for geo-blocking. This technology have become widely used in fraud prevention, advertising, and content localization, which are integral to geo-blocking applications.[4] The result of the checks is used to determine whether the system will approve or deny access to the website or to particular content. The geolocation may also be used to modify the content provided, for example, the currency in which goods are quoted, the price or the range of goods that are available, besides other aspects.

The term is most commonly associated with its use to restrict access to premium multimedia content on the Internet, such as films and television shows, primarily for copyright and licensing reasons. There are other uses for geo-blocking, such as blocking malicious traffic or to enforce price discrimination, location-aware authentication, fraud prevention, and online gambling (where gambling laws vary by region). Websites also use geo-blocking to comply with sanctions rules and regulations.[5]

  1. ^ Abdou, AbdelRahman; Matrawy, Ashraf; van Oorschot, Paul (June 2015). "CPV: Delay-based Location Verification for the Internet" (PDF). IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing. 14 (2): 130–144. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.696.691. doi:10.1109/TDSC.2015.2451614. S2CID 16821731. Archived (PDF) from the original on 26 October 2019. Retrieved 4 February 2016.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference telcoreviewnz-globalblock was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Goldsmith, Jack (2006). Who Controls the Internet? Illusions of a Borderless World. Oxford: Oxford Academic. pp. 49–64. ISBN 9780195152661.
  4. ^ "Using Geo-IP filtering to block connections coming to or from a geographic location". Sonic Wall.
  5. ^ Ablove, Anna; Chandrashekaran, Shreyas; Le, Hieu; Raman, Ram Sundara; Ramesh, Reethika; Oppenheimer, Harry; Ensafi, Roya (2024). "Digital Discrimination of Users in Sanctioned States: The Case of the Cuba Embargo". 33rd USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 24). Philadelphia, PA: USENIX Association. pp. 3909--3926. ISBN 978-1-939133-44-1.