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User complains that all of a sudden they can only get Netflix originals from home. Netflix suggests they call their ISP and ask why their IP is associated with
by crusty 5y ago
User complains that all of a sudden they can only get Netflix originals from home. Netflix suggests they call their ISP and ask why their IP is associated with proxy/vpn activity.
The assumption of the article seems to be that Netflix is performing some action on it's own to determine whether a residential user is on a VPN, and that this type of response is unhelpful buck-passing. But IIRC, for years now ISPs in the US have had the green light to monetize customer metadata. It seems possible that either Netflix or an industry-backed anti-piracy entity is buying lists with timestamped VPN usage per IP (based on packet traffic patterns?) for Netflix to compare to their usage time-stamps per IP and just assuming causation.
I don't know how far-fetched this is, but it fits with Netflix's response to these people's inquiries and it also removes the question of how Netflix might know if a user was streaming over a VPN through thier own residential ISP connection.