Veoh Blocks Some International Access

Comments (58)

• This seems to be a trend lately. One I don’t understand at all. Why deliberately block out part of your audience or potential audience? I just wrote a blog entry at my site this weekend about how the BBC is blocking US citizens from their shows and even commercials.

  Devon — 8:57 PM on June 1, 2008 Reply

• IMO, this seems like a smart business move – why spend money serving every single country on earth when you can’t generate revenue from them? A giant like YouTube has Google’s coffers to help keep service in Malaysia and Cyprus up and running, but it doesn’t make sense for smaller, privately funded companies to sacrifice good business just so they can keep everyone happy.

  Brian E — 9:21 PM on June 1, 2008 Reply

• It’s all about the ad revenue. Apparently it’s easier to block countries and tell advertisers that you’re specific to x region than it is to combine advertisers in specific regions and videos that are being viewed by a user in x country.

  I’m sure you can hike up CPMs now that the ads are “Geo” targeted.

  David Rodriguez — 9:27 PM on June 1, 2008 Reply

• Hi Devon, i AM from Malaysia , and thanks for your condescending comment.
  And congrats to Veoh, i think you have very successfully differentiated yourselves!

  While i accept downsizing as a sometimes necessary business tactic, it is ‘usually’ accompanied by a timeline and assistance for users to move accounts and services elsewhere. I think they’ve moved suddenly and without warning so as to limit most of the complaints and commentary to those from the affected countries – in the hope that they’ll be largely ignored by the twitterati of the infinitely more important group of 33.

  I alwys thought Eisner was a jerk anyway

  paullmf — 12:57 AM on June 2, 2008 Reply

• apologies Devon, my frustration should have been directed at Brian E

  paullmf — 1:19 AM on June 2, 2008 Reply

• What a bunch of idiots at Veoh, this must be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of.

  Captain Crap — 2:37 AM on June 2, 2008 Reply

• As someone who runs an online video site, I can understand why Veoh would want to block some countries, but they went about it the wrong way.

  (1) You have to communicate with users and explain things, otherwise you earn their wrath.
  (2) Veoh should offer them a fee-based version for countries that are currently hard to generate revenue from – they will either generate revenue to cover the delivery costs or they will reduce the users from that country automatically due to the new barrier.

  It is extremely hard to monetize limited amounts of traffic from multiple countries because most ad networks are only interested in specific regions. Also, approaching advertisers in EACH country is too time-consuming.

  It makes no financial sense to spend money serving video to users in Jamaica (where I am from) if you generate $0 from that traffic. You either find a way to monetize that traffic and at least break-even, or you eliminate that cost, otherwise you are throwing away money.

  David Mullings — 8:54 AM on June 2, 2008 Reply

• I’m a U.S. viewer, but I gave up on veoh after they started 30-second pre-rolls without any kind of cap. If you try to watch three or four videos, you see the same ad over and over and over and over.

  Phil — 10:40 AM on June 2, 2008 Reply

• The Question, which major vid sharing site will be next.

  Pyrmont — 7:12 AM on June 3, 2008 Reply

• My home, Hungary has also been blocked. Stage6 is gone, now Veoh… At least Stage6 gave us a warning a week before they actually shut down, but what Veoh did, I found it quite abrupt. Anyways, if they don’t need us, their call, still I think imposing fees or requiring donations might have been more a bit profitable than cutting off 80% of the world. Then again, I’m not their marketing manager, I’m sure they know better. I still hope they’ll reconsider this bold decision ’cause I really loved the premium quality service the site offered. Best regards, khamul

  khamul — 2:02 PM on June 3, 2008 Reply

• I can understand blocking a few countries but 165!
  The manner in which it was done was not only reprehensible, but an insult.
  No prior notification. No apologies. No access to them directly to air your views.
  This is the first time in the entire history of the internet that such a company has resorted to such dirty tricks.
  I have accessed my erstwhile site and removed all of my videos, and many are doing the same.
  We gave them our trust, and they have clearly demonstrated they are not worthy of any.
  Many in the remaining “elite” 31 countries are now moving to other sites in disgust, which includes my UK and USA accounts.
  VEOH, you are not worth rescueing.

  michal — 5:24 AM on June 4, 2008 Reply

• Living in one of the “privileged” countries (USA), I find VEOH’s action to be unique in the annals of the Internet.
  The backlash to this act of treachery to 82% of its community sums up the untrustworthiness of corporate america.
  VEOH has made me ashamed in the manner of thier actions and I am hereby withdrawing all my contributions to the aforesaid site and wish to ask the “blocked” world not to judge my country because of the open stupidity of some of my countrymen.

  George — 5:43 AM on June 4, 2008 Reply

• Everything veoh representatives said about the issue of blocking these countries are just excuses.

  Blocking the countries only proves the incapability of the Veoh stuff to built and maintain a competitive video base. First Mac users are being excused because veoh stuff can’t built the mac software and then countries are blocked? Incapability is obvious

  If you can’t do something right then just give up and don’t do it all.

  Marilena — 12:14 PM on June 4, 2008 Reply

• I’m from JAMAICA and i was heart stabbed when i saw the message being dispalyed saying the VEOH was no longer available. Now no dissing of other sites like but most of their vid streams are from VEOH so so even if you go to other site they all get their streams from VEOH which can’t be view here as it was blocked. Well i guess people can always do what they want with their product and forget the loyal customers. All i’m saying was they could have given us soem form of notice but in the end VEOH will be missed here…………………now i got to move to the US…………..LOL

  Prino — 12:23 PM on June 4, 2008 Reply

• First of all let’s all remember that Veoh does not stand for the US or any of the other 32 countries where it is still accessible.

  Now, trying to sum this all up, Veoh decided to withdraw their services from 165 countries (taken from another comment) using “re-focusing” of funds as their main reason.
  It is said in the article in the top of this page that “Veoh is ‘absolutely not’ running out of cash” and that they’re only looking for funding, but still they are shutting their services in the already mentioned countries.
  So, it’s not as if they are in economical danger in a way they have to cut those people out of their service list, they actually have the money, but just don’t care/like you. That’s what comes straight into my mind, when I read that text part.
  So much for getting funds, by decreasing your own reputation in (probably) 50% or more, since even US users called this a scandal.
  And maybe they are in the “red numbers”, but are just too proud to admit it. Perhaps just trying to maintain the image, but maybe they really just don’t want to make themselves available for people in those countries, including me (Brazil).

  Personally, I see it exactly like this: You and 4 friends are listening to someone, a conversation. Suddenly, the speaker steps forward to you and three other friends of yours and slaps them in the face, including you. Then you are lead to the door, which is shut right in your and your three friend’s face, one still in the room listening to the one speaking.

  You and your remaining friends now can’t talk to that friend in that room, but still can meet outside. That’s what’s exactly going to happen. Veoh will only be useful to the ones in those countries, while the “rest” won’t, so people will remove their movies linked to Veoh from their sites, worldwide forum users will have to use another service to show videos and that one will eventually get all the attention.

  Arthur — 2:19 PM on June 4, 2008 Reply

• this was a dodgy move by veoh, im spending the summer in a foreign country so this is gonna suck really bad, i reccomend to all dropped users. http://www.myspace.com, upload videos there, its reliable XD and they support tons of other countries. quality is fair. i own my own site and i used veoh to link some of my important videos because of quality and length :| damn it sucks being a 15 yr old i have no say xD anyways gl veoh, hope your move helps you out. its make or break with you guys now. appearently people complain that they got no notification D: anyways c ya

  Kev — 3:52 PM on June 4, 2008 Reply

• stu-pid decision made by stupid people.

  yeahyeahyeah — 11:20 PM on June 4, 2008 Reply

• veoh is a lil bitch for doin this crap, only certain sites have as many vids an can be accessed from the bahamas

  slkjdkndjnd — 5:50 AM on June 5, 2008 Reply

• It may interest you all to know that a new site (which emphasises it is “Anti-VEOH”) has come to the fore in the last few days.
  The site is http://www.stage-next.com/
  Thier motto “For loyalty that is quality”
  Refugees from Veoh are welcomed with open arms.
  I’ve found that many “chosen ones” have also moved there.

  George — 7:03 AM on June 5, 2008 Reply

• i’m utterly disappointed with the people at veoh. this is what happens when stupid people do business.

  Greg — 10:21 AM on June 6, 2008 Reply

• Esto apesta tanto material subido y de repente se les canta las bolas y se pasan todo por el culo son unos hijos de puta

  hacko — 6:37 PM on June 6, 2008 Reply

• Veoh GO HELL !

  ddfds — 9:34 PM on June 6, 2008 Reply

• Perhaps this is just a movement to get more people aware of Veoh, And in time everyone will most likely get Veoh again. Like i said just a publicity stunt. ^^

  b.p.s — 9:35 PM on June 6, 2008 Reply

• So let me get this straight, Veoh was having low traffic on its site, and it’s solution to increase the traffic and therefore make themselves some money was to BLOCK USERS? I felt hurt when I logged on and saw the message saying my country was blocked. It was so out of the blue, so shocking that I don’t think that I could ever be talked into using Veoh again, this is betrayal in its simplest form. Add St. Vincent and the Grenadines to that ever growing list of banned countries and add me as a user that will never go back.

  Nickie — 12:02 PM on June 7, 2008 Reply

• eisner and shapiro can go to hell for all i care… i only have one message for them:

  great business plan guys!

  robo — 6:50 PM on June 7, 2008 Reply

• Now. That’s What I Call Capitalism.

  Jose — 8:34 PM on June 8, 2008 Reply

• It’s not the end of the world that veoh blocked half of the world. Probably veoh themselves never thought they would’ve gotten this big. So there you go, business without prior proper planning.

  Phew, i’m glad i’ve sold my anime streaming site to a Canadian a few days before veoh went on the blocking rampage. :D

  Ren — 9:25 PM on June 8, 2008 Reply

• Isnt this especially ironic considering Veoh’s main original vision was about how peer2peer was the way forward for net video, and how that would solve problems like bandwidth & server costs.

  Unfortunately I fear people better get used to having the rug pulled from under them, as the wider economy has a fit and reality bites web 2.0.

  Steve Elbows — 3:09 PM on June 9, 2008 Reply

• “Unfortunately Veoh will be ending service in your country due to a low concentration of users. Veoh is maintaining markets when we have the highest concentration of viewers.”

  i from MY use proxy la =.= i wan look how many veoh can block IP ^_^ GOODLUCK I CAN i can open have nices sever IP so happy ^^

  use proxy for noob (go http://www.youtube.com type proxy can help u how to use proxy ) or hacker for pro ( i can use but wasted time ) ( not good for veoh ) but i like veoh just use proxy ( veoh cant block many IP but if him make id + pws hard to hacker) veoh only find money $$$$$$$ money $$$$ money $$$$$ no money no anime =.= i love money next time sure veoh ….. pay money to log in veoh web sure

  LifeStar — 8:48 AM on June 11, 2008 Reply

• Veoh eats poo

  Byjty1995 — 5:56 PM on June 11, 2008 Reply

• Well im ok, its reasonable that if they want to make some profit, need to define well its target public, but nontheless they should have make a huge press something to make sure all users were aware coz just click a link and finding out ur banned its really like a kick on the balls.

  Zadig — 12:18 PM on June 17, 2008 Reply

• I’m glad I don’t have any videos uploaded there …

  kalsaud — 2:15 PM on June 18, 2008 Reply

• I’m from Brazil and I’m deeply upset by this police they arrenged. Veoh is just not fair ¬¬ If they were going to shut us up, them they should have not opened their doors in the first place.

  Ana — 2:45 PM on June 21, 2008 Reply

• This is such an absurd that it is hard to believe that is actually happening.

  There is no excuse for this level of arrogance and blatant prejudice.

  Who the hell do they think they are?

  Who the heck do they think we are?

  I was a frequent user of video tutorials available in Veoh, and I’m deeply disappointed to know that Veoh banned so many countries in this low, prepotent and fascist attitude.

  Montalvo – São Paulo – Brazil

  Montalvo Machado — 8:15 PM on July 3, 2008 Reply

• veoh is disgusting. i woke up one morning and decided to visit veoh since i had not gone on it in a few week. “Veoh is no longer available in JAMAICA.
  If you are not in JAMAICA or you think you have received this message in error, please report the issue below.” I’m like “Wha???
  veoh has poor management issues, a business plan with holes in it and a lot of disgruntled users who got betrayed and kicked out. its like veoh is prejudiced against people who don’t live in financially well off countries or countries which do not advertise on their sites, giving them tonnes of $$$ to fuel their website which is probably in the red zone. they might not be admitting it but probably are in financial troubles. i hope you go down veoh; i hope you go D O W N!!!

  Stephen — 3:57 PM on July 5, 2008 Reply

• Hey everyone!!! go to http://www.raymond.cc/blog/archives/2008/06/04/access-and-watch-veoh-even-if-veoh-is-no-longer-available-in-your-country/ to learn how to go on veoh without the message of being bloacked!

  Mark — 4:02 PM on July 5, 2008 Reply

• Veoh is shit!!!! segregation and racism! they are Pigs.They Will fail. Idiots…..Only a big Fool could run this “enterprise” jajajaja enterprise…..A LOT TO LERN VEOH!!!! See you later in my ATARI box!!!

  Pablo — 3:57 AM on July 17, 2008 Reply

• Well, now the list of blocked countries is a little bigger, with 170 instead of just 164 countries (Wikipedia). I’m Brazilian and since I was too busy and later without my computer, so I took a while to notice the problem. At the midle of June I’ve got the message “Veoh is not available for Brazil”. At 1st I thought it could be some kind of bug (like tons of problems that Veoh has) and didn’t mind. But today, when I tried to acess it again…The same message I decide no make a search on Google. How big it wasn’t my surprise when understand what happend!!!
  I never uploaded videos there, but I usually watch anime series there.
  It’s amazing how racist, ditactor, discriminative (and lot of other words that I can’t say) simple block 170 countries, with the poor excuse of low number of viewers at these countries. It’s a great lie that all these countries aren’t even 10% of the members.
  Latin America, Central America, parts of Asia and Europe (the poor parts of course). The could be poor, but that poor that doesn’t have an expressive number of viewers.
  If they would black at least they could send a warning e-mail!!!
  Interesting: The still sending me e-mails with news.
  Stupid!!!!!!!!!!

  Shayera — 4:56 PM on July 23, 2008 Reply

• Get a monkey , make it wear a suit and voilà!! you get a corporate person.
  I am absolutely sure that more than 70% of blocked users are capable,eligible and hardworking enough to run such a service from all its departments, and get this: “no monkey business” .

  P.S: Stage-Next.com message:
  Forbidden

  You don’t have permission to access / on this server.

  Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

  Remember the end scene from “The Day After tomorrow” ? ;)
  enjoy

  3rd world — 3:05 AM on July 26, 2008 Reply

• Well, they’re only serving the 33 richest countries in the world. One might think they did this in order to “prevent” piracy, which it seems they’re assuming it to come from the poorest countries :-)

  Justme — 11:55 AM on July 26, 2008 Reply

• The ugly truth veoh just won’t accept is that most of their top (and most viewed) content is in fact illegal! I’m talking about anime ,series ,movies(that they don’t have licenses to) …let’s face it…if you want to watch something like that you go to veoh, if you want to watch anything else, you go to youtube…
  Now, the problem veoh is facing is that a lot of that less-then-legal content comes from those 170+ banned countries. And even some of the non-banned users are pulling their vids as a sign of solidarity and moving to other sites. From a scrupulous capitalist “get money now, who cares about human relationships” view this move is pretty sound, but what veoh didn’t anticipate is the whiplash effect this action has caused. Veoh had great ambitions and goals from the start, and they were ready to achieve them through any means, whether they are necessary or not.

  Banned and distraught — 4:12 PM on August 12, 2008 Reply

• It’s not just Veoh it’s everybody…
  I tried to view disney.com
  And it told me: “thanks for your interest in Disney”…but go to Disney international because its more tailored to my region…and my f– region isn’t on the list!
  I tried going to disney.co.uk (I live in Europe, and the UK is close to me…plus it’s in English), BUT NOOOO….Apparently I can’t have access to that site too!
  It’s the same for a lot of other sites!
  What the hell man? I thought this was the WORLD Wide web?
  I wish some brilliant hacker just makes a virus to bring down all web sites like that!!!

  THE WEB NEEDS A REBOOT!!!

  -Catt

  Catt — 1:56 PM on September 6, 2008 Reply

• veoh is disgusting

  hot hatches — 7:33 AM on September 25, 2008 Reply

• Veoh, are just running outta money..

  They’ll be 20million in the hole by the end of the year.

  Probably time to fire some employee’s just before Christmas.

  Dave — 10:04 AM on October 18, 2008 Reply

• u should add in “those pieces of *! how dare they block me, * racists” that’s what i felt when i moved to brazil and discovered that.

  if they aren’t loosing budget why block everyone?

  D4rk — 7:18 PM on December 2, 2008 Reply

• Wow.

  Manly — 3:35 AM on December 29, 2008 Reply

• Just face it Veoh. If you cannot find any profit from smaller yet a lots of country, just know better that you are not any good strategist. Just being discriminate like shit!!!

  Chicas — 5:33 PM on January 10, 2009 Reply

• I guess i could totally understand Veoh’s decision but still because i am and many people or suffering from the slick move(well i don’t give a ** about other people)
  Veoh is now officially gay gay gay motherfuckers that deserve to get crucified!!!

  emmanuel — 4:02 PM on January 11, 2009 Reply

• Very disappointing, i guess the few Jamaicans in my country now wont be watching streams on there lunch break.Back to downloading guys

  I suppose its only a matter of time before other stream sites go in the same direction.

  FromJa — 8:36 AM on January 14, 2009 Reply

• BOYCOTT THEM, THEY BLOCKED MY COUNTRY!!!

  BOYCOTT!!

  BOYCOTT!

  BOYCOTT

  BOYCOTT VEOH PLEASE!!! — 1:16 PM on April 11, 2009 Reply

• BLOCKED MY COUNTRY too …(((

  http://www.tagomatic.com/view-sites/adultfrienddinder.gog.pl/

  wwwyoutubecom — 9:44 AM on May 7, 2009 Reply

• Veoh is no longer available in Trinidad and Tobago as well…

  stams — 6:35 PM on June 3, 2009 Reply

• I am begging u to give us back veoh please reconsider at least jamaica. Ur one of the best video wibsite around and ur just going to abandoned some of the people who help bulid u up. I introduce my friend to veoh and he lives in jamaica and he still has it running long before u guy block it. my computer crash and i add to run it over and now i want it back he is having more fun than i am. i have on purpose for the internet if i cant use veoh so please reconsider.

  junior — 6:02 PM on June 16, 2009 Reply

• I for one am not against Veoh doing what they have to do, but like many others I believe they could have handled the situation better.

  From what I know of business structure, all of Veoh’s management are assholes. Because a move like this would have to be brought up in meetings and signed off on.

  I hope bad things happen to Veoh, and they WILL have to close down because of it. You do not discriminate against half of the planet and think it will be smooth sailing. I would advice Veoh to give their management staff people training, marketing courses and other business useful education. Or at least make sure they are literate for the position they are filling.

  Since they weren’t short on cash, they could have handled the situation better.

  In the end, education is key! And these people don’t have any. No luck to you Veoh, hope you burn….

  BornJamaican — 11:27 PM on June 18, 2009 Reply

• Thanks for the information. I’m argentinian and wanted why mi country was blocked ¬¬

  Akane Miyano — 12:13 PM on July 5, 2009 Reply

• Veoh started out as a decent video site, with very little difficulty in watching what was available on their servers. Then, the problems began.

  It began when Veoh started to get into what I like to term the ‘Secondary Software Scenario.’ This happens when, instead of just linking the video, itself, and let the user use their browser’s own embedded video viewing capability to handle the matter, they just had to have people use ‘yet another piece of bloat code’ to do what is, essentially, a fairly easy-to-manage operation.

  The ads are acceptable, and, although being the usual annoyances that ads are, remain a good source of revenue so that the general public can watch their moving pictures for free.

  Now for the improper part. The Internet is just that: ‘Inter’. Not Intra (meaning, ‘from within’) but rather ‘Inter’ (mutually, together), meaning a collective of computer users from around the globe.

  The People of the Internet are not unthinking, uncaring individuals. We are dynamic, broad-minded, and desirous of the countries of the world to foster the ability to foment peace, clean up their collective acts–be they environmental or social–so that they get along and are respectful of their neighbors.

  Having to have region codes on DVD’s is bad enough. Censorship is bad enough without that kind of nonsense keeping openness from becoming a reality in our collective lifetimes. Too many people want to control others, exclude others from what they believe to be ‘their share of the pot’ and ‘their information.’ There is altogether too much of the attitude of “I know what’s best for you, you can’t watch that, watch this instead.”

  The People of the Internet are not morons! We are not automatons living in a turn-of-the-century ‘Metropolis’ vision! We represent the brightest Minds of the Twenty-First Century! We are tired of censorship in the media, weary of media industry associations working to place electronic limitations on digital files–both audio and video–and are equally tired of prejudice of one country over another.

  All that said, here is the crux of my comment: Veoh’s limiting of it’s audience to only 33 countries smacks of disrespect, prejudice, and bigotry! It looks to me as if Veoh’s Board of Directors let marketing have a free reign on the management of the company, something that, if true–although I am not accusing anyone–smacks just a tad bit aloof of the Sarbanes-Oxley doctrine.

  If not, then with what are we left? Simple commercial prejudice based on nothing more than ad-money intake? If so, that’s a crappy way to run a business, Pure, Plain, and Simple!

  Ad-revenue is certainly a major part of any online enterprise, and I see plenty of sites doing it and doing well, without any repositories of bloatware-based video and music players, crappy ad-runs, or region-limiting (Read: IP Address Range Blocking!) practices.

  Veoh, in limiting it’s reach within a medium that spans the entire Planet Earth, builds bridges between nations, and fosters congeniality among individuals and groups, is doing nothing more onerous than showing forth it’s own limiting view of the World.

  A view that shows a desire to continue a prejudice that should have long since died out.

  Firefishe — 2:38 AM on September 2, 2009 Reply

• I hate Veoh now ! I was able to watch videos from Veoh for 2 days and after that it just bloc´d me ! I have an account with a lot of videos that I uploaded 1 Does any body now how to watch the videos from Veoh without being bloc´d ?!

  Eva — 11:14 AM on October 6, 2009 Reply

  • you can try proxy, i have used it since veoh blocked my country :)

    you can get good proxy list at xroxy[dot]com

    pipiberserakan — 9:28 AM on February 9, 2010 Reply