4 ms·

honest opinion: I hate geoip. I think judging your visitors from their geolocation is more and more becoming a problem. It goes against the fundamental value of

by hannob 11y ago

honest opinion: I hate geoip. I think judging your visitors from their geolocation is more and more becoming a problem. It goes against the fundamental value of the Internet being a global network. I don't want Netflix to sell a sub-standard product in some countries because some licensing foo. I want everyone on this planet to have access to the same Internet. If I could I would redesign internet routing in a way that the webpage doesn't know where a request comes from.

escaped_hn 11y ago
or pay 5 bucks for a vpn.
martin-adams 11y ago
Sadly, with the whole European VAT requirements the guidelines are as follows: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-supplying-digital-services-to-private-consumers/vat-businesses-supplying-digital-services-to-private-consumers https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-supplying-dig... "the business making the supply must obtain and keep 2 pieces of non-contradictory information to support and evidence the member state where the customer is normally located." One of those being: "the Internet Protocol (IP) address of the device used by the customer" So sign up for something while abroad and you could get caught out.
atmosx 11y ago
> I want everyone on this planet to have access to the same Internet. Really? Do you want everyone on this planet to get taxed equally too? Because if he answer is 'yes', then you're strategy isn't working.
geofft 11y ago
> I don't want Netflix to sell a sub-standard product in some countries because some licensing foo. "some licensing foo" is a great way of eliding that in some countries, the service would be illegal. The alternative is that the product could not exist at all, if there is no way to negotiate a contract for it. You can certainly argue that products should not exist if that would involve contradicting some abstract ideal for society, or that it's good for things on the internet to blatantly violate mundane real-world laws until real-world governments become irrelevant. Respectable people hold both of those positions. But they're not very widely-accepted positions.
- derefr 11y ago
  Presume a hypothetical world where everybody's traffic is onion-routed, or at least VPNed. Streaming-content licensing would still happen in such a world—the location-enforcement would just have to happen by other means, like account phone-number verification.
  - geofft 11y ago
    That still involves Netflix selling a sub-standard product in some countries, no? I'm not being pedantic about the argument, I just don't see how there's a benefit to any fundamental values if we still allow this delta, but we're picky about what technical means are used to make it happen. I could see an argument that geo-IP databases are often wrong and that's a problem, but that seems like a very different argument.
rogerbinns 11y ago
GeoIP can be used for good. For example it can be used to set defaults for various forms and choices. Why should you have to scroll past about half the world's countries just to select yours? The most likely airport I want is the closest one. Same for store locators. Estimating my taxes, shipping charges and delivery date are great too. Even sorting products and choices by what those in my area prefer is great too. The geoip doesn't need to be street level accurate, but to the nearest ~30 miles can make the online experience much more pleasant and sensible.
nadams 11y ago
> If I could I would redesign internet routing in a way that the webpage doesn't know where a request comes from. The internet already has that - it's called spoofing a packet. But in all seriousness - this is an extremely bad idea. Having a unknown source would make it extremely easy for horrible people to do bad things to good people.

by hannob 11y ago

escaped_hn 11y ago

or pay 5 bucks for a vpn.

martin-adams 11y ago

Sadly, with the whole European VAT requirements the guidelines are as follows: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-supplying-digital-services-to-private-consumers/vat-businesses-supplying-digital-services-to-private-consumers https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-supplying-dig... "the business making the supply must obtain and keep 2 pieces of non-contradictory information to support and evidence the member state where the customer is normally located." One of those being: "the Internet Protocol (IP) address of the device used by the customer" So sign up for something while abroad and you could get caught out.

atmosx 11y ago

> I want everyone on this planet to have access to the same Internet. Really? Do you want everyone on this planet to get taxed equally too? Because if he answer is 'yes', then you're strategy isn't working.

geofft 11y ago

> I don't want Netflix to sell a sub-standard product in some countries because some licensing foo. "some licensing foo" is a great way of eliding that in some countries, the service would be illegal. The alternative is that the product could not exist at all, if there is no way to negotiate a contract for it. You can certainly argue that products should not exist if that would involve contradicting some abstract ideal for society, or that it's good for things on the internet to blatantly violate mundane real-world laws until real-world governments become irrelevant. Respectable people hold both of those positions. But they're not very widely-accepted positions.

derefr 11y ago
Presume a hypothetical world where everybody's traffic is onion-routed, or at least VPNed. Streaming-content licensing would still happen in such a world—the location-enforcement would just have to happen by other means, like account phone-number verification.
- geofft 11y ago
  That still involves Netflix selling a sub-standard product in some countries, no? I'm not being pedantic about the argument, I just don't see how there's a benefit to any fundamental values if we still allow this delta, but we're picky about what technical means are used to make it happen. I could see an argument that geo-IP databases are often wrong and that's a problem, but that seems like a very different argument.

rogerbinns 11y ago

GeoIP can be used for good. For example it can be used to set defaults for various forms and choices. Why should you have to scroll past about half the world's countries just to select yours? The most likely airport I want is the closest one. Same for store locators. Estimating my taxes, shipping charges and delivery date are great too. Even sorting products and choices by what those in my area prefer is great too. The geoip doesn't need to be street level accurate, but to the nearest ~30 miles can make the online experience much more pleasant and sensible.

nadams 11y ago

> If I could I would redesign internet routing in a way that the webpage doesn't know where a request comes from. The internet already has that - it's called spoofing a packet. But in all seriousness - this is an extremely bad idea. Having a unknown source would make it extremely easy for horrible people to do bad things to good people.