• Ars Technica, Friday, May 11, 2012 11:29 AM

If you live in places like South Africa or New Zealand, you cannot access many Web video services like Vevo, Hulu or Netflix because most of their programming rights do not extend beyond American borders. However, a new ISP called “Fyx” is offering a feature to its subscribers called “Global Mode” that apparently circumvents the geo-blocking capabilities of sites like Hulu and Netflix that are designed to keep foreigners out.

While Fyx has become the first ISP to offer such a feature, foreigners have long been able to pay for commercial virtual private networks to get around the problem. "We all know that New Zealand is the best little country in the world," says Fyx on its Web site. "But sometimes being little means that we get passed over when toys are being handed out... So we decided to FYX the Internet by removing some of the barriers that were getting in the way of great choice."

According to PC World New Zealand, getting around regional blocks is currently legal, but both Hulu and Netflix claim that using these services is a violation of their terms of use. Nevertheless, there is no evidence of either site is pursuing legal action against VPNs.

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