Geo-blocking, DRM, and the 'Australia Tax'

One of the goals of the W3C is to make contect available to people
regardless of geographical location.

Here's an example of how DRM allows content providers to do the exact
opposite: charge people signficantly more than others, based on the
country in which they reside.

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http://www.zdnet.com/the-australia-tax-is-real-geo-blocking-to-stop-7000018644/

"While the committee acknowledges that in some cases, geo-blocking is a
necessary business practice, it also notes that many IT vendors appear
to use geo-blocking as a means to raise prices by restricting consumers'
ability to access the global marketplace," the report said.

"The committee considers this form of geo-blocking to be a significant
constraint on consumer choice."
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-- 
Duncan Bayne
ph: +61 420817082 | web: http://duncan-bayne.github.com/ | skype:
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Received on Monday, 29 July 2013 10:51:50 UTC