market simultaneously.
High-value revenue opportunities often use geo-
targeting. Ad insertion can particularly leverage
location services. Local and national advertising
campaigns can be dynamically inserted into con-
tent based on users’ location data, helping con-
tent providers attract local, national and world-
wide advertisers based on their performance
within different regions. Programmatic advertis-
ing almost always leverages location information,
in addition to other demographic data, to target
relevant advertising on a large scale.
GEO-TARGETING VERSUS GEO-BLOCKING
Before continuing, let’s go over some terminol-
ogy. “Geo-fencing” is the function of defining
virtual borders upon which location decisions will
be based. A geo-fence could, for example, be a
set of cities which allow (“geo-targeting”) or pro-
hibit (“geo-blocking”) access to content. What
if you want to target the suburban areas of San
Francisco? You can draw a map of the suburbs
expressed in latitude and longitude positions.
Geo-fencing could also be specific to the user
themselves, such as when the user is at home or
at work.
“Geo-blocking” is the function of prohibiting
access to content based on user location. This
is critical for territory and rights management.
For example, a sports broadcaster may have the
rights to stream a game only within the same
metro area as the OTA broadcast. Conversely,
geo-blocking can be used to implement local
blackout restrictions for sports and concerts,
preventing streaming within the event’s host city
unless all tickets have sold out. Broadcasters may
also wish to implement geo-blocking based on
their interpretations of royalty considerations.
Geo-blocking is usually an enforced policy,
where content is blocked at the access layer.
For StreamGuys, that means the server makes
an evaluation of the end-user’s location before
allowing content to play back.
While geo-blocking is used to prohibit access, in
contrast, geo-targeting is used to allow access
and increase relevance by providing specific, tar-
geted content based on location. Beyond the tar-
geted advertising applications mentioned earlier,
geo-targeting is often used to deliver different
versions of programming based on the location
of the user.
UNDER THE HOOD
Geographic decisions are made by identifying
where the end-user is, so the accuracy of geo-
targeting or geo-blocking is determined by the
available data. The location of end-users can be
determined with or without their participation.
Devices which provide location telemetry – such
as smartphones, and almost all modern PCs and
browsers – can be enabled to share end-user
data. This is usually an opt-in capability, with the
user prompted to allow location sharing. Once
enabled, mobile devices typically send GPS lati-
tude and longitude data, which is very accurate.
Even devices which lack a proper GPS can send
latitude and longitude coordinates; for example,
the Google Chrome browser can provide highly
accurate information from its database of WiFi
access spots.
What if the end-user declines to share their loca-
tion? In the absence of latitude and longitude
data, geographic decisions can be made based on
the IP address of the user. The IP address is usu-
ally available in the network session’s request for
the content, and can be looked up in IP address
databases from many providers to determine the
corresponding location. IP-based location accu-
racy is only as good as the database itself. Such
info is usually very accurate at the country level,
and reasonably accurate to the city level, but
fairly inaccurate to the block and street address
level. There can also be false identification for
individuals who are behind networks which share
IPs between users, like larger corporate networks
and some mobile networks.
PUTTING IT IN PRACTICE
Broadcasters often use a mix of geo-blocking
and geo-targeting. For example, if you need to
prohibit access to content such as a soccer game
from a specific country, you might also want the
option of targeting alternative content to those
users – either different programming, or at least a
service message explaining the restriction.
Broadcast Beat Magazine • www.broadcastbeat.com • 17