Limit Broadcast Viewing Based on Location

Use latitude and longitude to protect (geo-block) your content so that it can only be viewed in certain geographic regions.

Mindy Worley avatar
Written by Mindy Worley
Updated over a week ago

How it works

You can protect your content so that it can only be viewed in certain geographic regions. The verification pass begins with a two-step viewer location detection strategy, starting with the most commonly used IP-to-geo strategy (powered by the MaxMind database) with a fall-back to the HTML5 in-browser geolocation API. If the geolocation fails for any reason, we default to blocking the content. For viewers in restricted regions, we kindly inform them of the block.*This feature does not work with our BoxCast Tv apps (Roku, Apple Tv, Fire Tv) or on social media destinations.

The block can be configured based on a latitude and longitude, or based on a list of ZIP codes. Additionally, you can set it so that it is a whitelist (only the specified region is allowed to watch) or a blocklist (the specified region is not allowed to watch, but everywhere else can).

Book a meeting with your customer success manager, email us, or upgrade in the self-checkout if you need to add geo-blocking to your plan.

Configuring the geo-block for all content on your account:

Log in to the BoxCast Dashboard.

Click on the Settings page, Click on Preferences and click on Edit for Privacy and Security.

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Check the Enable Content Geo-block option.

Paste in the list of zip codes (command delimited) OR type in the specified latitude/longitude/radius (can be found on Google Maps).

Select whether to Allow or Deny the specified geographic boundary from watching content.

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Configuring the geo-block for one channel:

Log in to the BoxCast Dashboard.

Click on Channels, and then select the channel you would like to configure the block for or create a new channel.

Click on the Edit Channel button.

Check the Enable Content Geo-block option.

Paste in the list of zip codes (command delimited) OR type in the specified latitude/longitude/radius (can be found on Google Maps).

Select whether to Allow or Deny the specified geographic boundary from watching content.

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HTML5 Location Detection

There is an advanced option to "Prefer HTML5 location detection". If checked, the player will use the HTML5 geolocation APIs to precisely detect where the user is (on mobile devices, this uses the device GPS). It is much more accurate than the default IP address lookup, but comes at a cost that some users will be prompted to allow location detection, and they might not allow it - in this case, they will be unable to watch the content.

Find your Latitude / Longitude: https://www.latlong.net/

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