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

Discriminatory pricing is very much a vogue subject, and though DRM can be used to reinforce it, it's not really an essential part.  Anywhere there is electronic sale, and per-user offers, it's do-able.

Examples: rumor has it that some sites will raise the price on something you've seen before (e.g. a flight), to give the impression it's selling out.  And so on.

It used to be that advertising was the major way in which we were manipulXXXXXX I mean, influenced, but there are many more tools now.


On Jul 29, 2013, at 12:51 , Duncan Bayne <dhgbayne@fastmail.fm> wrote:

> 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.
> 
> =====
> 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."
> =====

David Singer
Multimedia and Software Standards, Apple Inc.

Received on Monday, 29 July 2013 10:56:19 UTC