One of the key reasons to use a VPN is to bypass regional restrictions on content with providers like Netflix. Since 2015, however, the streaming giant has been playing cat-and-mouse with VPN providers and users in region A trying to grab content they don’t have the licensing rights to stream from region B (such as the UK and USA).

Netflix blocks VPN IP addresses, and VPNs using region unblocking as a selling point grab a whole bunch of new IP addresses, and the game continues.

Caught in the middle of all this are users trying to access Netflix normally, but with the benefit of a private, encrypted connection through a VPN. They too were blocked, even when trying to simply access local programming through the service. Only disabling the VPN would provide access to Netflix, not an acceptable option to most VPN users (especially when trying to overcome ISP traffic management, or “throttling”).

If this sounds like you, things could be looking up. According to TorrentFreak, Netflix has stopped blocking VPN users – but those trying to access region blocked content will have their efforts thwarted.

The region-locked content will be simply hidden.

Netflix has not released any confirmation about this move, which seems to have been happening since early May. Netflix database scraper uNoGS told TorrentFreak that “We first noticed major changes with Netflix around May 1st. Along with forcing us to re-write a bunch of our legacy tools we noticed that a lot fewer titles were showing up with our scraper scripts.”

But this isn’t going to be the end of VPN users in region A accessing Netflix content in region B. VPNs promising access to region blocked content will workaround the problem. In fact it’s suspected several already have contingencies in place ready to roll out.

Circumventing region blocked content is a massive selling point for top VPNs like NordVPN. They’re not going to give up without a fight.