Geo-blocking

How geo-blocking works

• Blocking. The site refuses to load, or shows an unavailable page, for visitors from certain countries.
• Redirection. Visitors are sent to a country edition with its own language, range or prices.
• Different terms. The page loads, but checkout refuses a foreign card or delivery address, or applies other conditions.

Location is usually inferred from the IP address with geolocation databases, the same signal geo-targeting relies on.

What EU Regulation 2018/302 says

• In force since 3 December 2018 for cross-border situations within the EU; purely domestic situations are outside it.
• Article 3: a trader may not block or limit access to its online interface because of a customer's nationality, place of residence or place of establishment, nor redirect them to another country version without their explicit consent — and the original version must stay easily accessible.
• Article 4: a trader may not apply different general conditions of access for those reasons when a customer buys goods for delivery to, or collection in, a place the trader serves, buys electronically supplied services, or receives services at a physical location such as a hotel or venue.
• Article 4(2): prices may still differ between member states, as long as they are offered on a non-discriminatory basis to customers in a territory.
• Exclusions: electronically supplied services whose main feature is access to copyright works, such as streaming, are outside Article 4(1)(b); and the activities excluded from the Services Directive by its Article 2(2) — including transport and audiovisual services — are outside the Regulation altogether.

This summarises the text and is not legal advice.

Geo-blocking vs geo-pricing

Showing different prices by market is not the same as blocking, and the Regulation expressly allows it where it is non-discriminatory. For air fares, a separate rule applies: Regulation 1008/2008 covers access to fares regardless of residence, as explained under point of sale. Measuring these differences is the subject of comparing prices across markets.

Observing it from each market

To see what a site shows in a given country, request it from an exit inside that country and record the market with each observation; test proxy location shows how to confirm the exit. Observation is the point: accessing territorially licensed content against the provider's terms is a different matter, and infringing intellectual property is prohibited under ARC's acceptable use rules.