Hulu gets more aggressive on geolocation, blocks Hotspot Shield


Hulu is a service that provides access to advertising-supported videos from TV and movie studios. Officially, it's only available to viewers in the United States, because Hulu only has the rights to distribute those videos in the US, and only has the advertising partnerships in place to make money from US views.

But the internet being what it is, a relatively small number of people have been using tricks to get around the geolocation restrictions, using proxy tools like Hotspot Shield for ages. This week, Hulu tightened its grip and started blocking access to anyone using anonymous proxy tools. In other words, Hotspot Shield ain't going to let you watch Hulu from the UK anymore.

I certainly hope this means Hulu plans to roll out international service soon, because the alternative for many users will be to turn to downloading movies and TV shows from BitTorrent or other services.

[via NewTeeVee]

Tags: hotspot-shield, hulu, proxy