South African consumers hoping to gain access to Netflix using UnoTelly are facing challenges. This follows Netflix’s announcement that it will be shutting down UnoTelly-style scrambling services.
“In coming weeks, those using proxies and unblockers will only be able to access the service in the country where they currently are,” said Netflix.
UnoTelly South Africa users who have been accessing the streaming service’s US catalogue through UnoTelly have reportedly been cut off, with users reporting that they have received an error message that says:
“You seem to be using an unblocker or proxy. Please turn off any of these services and try again.”
Reports do however suggest that some UnoTelly uses are able to access Netflix US from certain devices, so not all users have been affected.
Netflix started blocking some VPN services towards the end of January, in a bid to prevent non-US subscribers accessing the service’s US catalogue.
According to a report by TorrentFreak, this has resulted in fierce resistance from thousands of users. UnoTelly has said that consumers may not use them to unblock Netflix.
Many South African users will only have access to the Netflix catalogue designed for this country. In Australia, Netflix users had also started using unblockers such as UnoTelly, but Netflix has nipped this trend in the bud.
UnoTelly has conformed to Netflix’s demands.
“UnoTelly should only be used for privacy protection purposes. Any other usage is not permitted,” UnoTelly states.
This also follows the recent news that PayPal has blocked UnoTelly. The latter’s website now no longer makes any mention of Netflix. As a result, UnoTelly can no longer accept payment from PayPal.
“In coming weeks, those using proxies and unblockers will only be able to access the service in the country where they currently are,” said Netflix.