Good afternoon,
Does this happen to you? Is it something that impacts a lot of Expats? Is there some way to aggregate sites that do this and look for alternative solutions? I hunted [unsuccessfully] for some kind of international accessibility checker or even a useful article that discusses the issue (and not just "go-arounds").
I mentioned this same issue back in 2020 - again, my bank's network administrator decided to block all traffic from Brazil and my VPN (McAfee) doesn't get me through the wall because I'm sure there are means to block known VPN routes as well.
I won't name this bank because they "are working on it." This is my third time in the course of 14 years that this has happened and it coincides [this time] with a site that just got a significant facelift. My bank is not an international institution (I've banked there for 50 years but it went from being local to national). The network administrator isn't even the same (was local now.... ?). I'm pretty sure that they did what is "normally" advised, blocking traffic from where there "are no customers."
But that's my pet peeve. I wonder how many USA sites block Brazil because their audience isn't part of the common portfolio or profile.
And I'm thinking that this is a situation that probably impacts expats around the world, wherever they live or are from. That is where my curiosity kicks in. Clearly there are situations where content is necessarily altered based on country. Examples: Netflix offers films in the USA that are not offered in Brazil and that is often a licensing or movie launch issue. A movie that has not yet gone through the movie theater circuit (yet already having done so in the USA) is understandably restricted via Netflix in Brazil; Altering content and pricing differences for Amazon products quite handily can be offered correctly to the different consumers. I'm sure there are many good reasons to take advantage of using location information to provide the best content in many regards.
BUT - sometimes it is just plain stupid. I have run into magazines that I cannot subscribe to because their subscription form doesn't handle foreign addresses AND they won't take call-in orders (just happened with a magazine that I've been receiving here for 14 years but they made "upgrades" and lost the ability to continue me).
There are news sites that just block any access. The following example is interesting because I can access the "mother" site but none of the news orgs listed:
https://www.tribpub.com/# Mother company with access covers these news org, none of which I can access: Chicago Tribune, Orlando Sentinel, The Baltimore Sun, DailyPress, SunSentinel, The Morning Call, Hartford Courant, The Virginian Pilot.
No access to these via my provider (NetClaro) even using Mcafee VPN with a USA virtual location.
Most common message:
"Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism." Note: has been this way for years. They're certainly NOT "engaged on the issue...."
Alternate Message:
The Morning Call Mcall.com "This content is not available in your region"
IF you run into a site blocked for Brazilian Internauts please send it to me via back-channel (a direct note) because I'd like to collect names to see how big the problem is.
Thanks for listening to my lament..........
@mberigan
