Similarly to GPS spoofing, with geolocation spoofing, the spoofers fake their or someone else’s location by manipulating the location data of their device. The most common ways for doing it is through a Virtual Private Network (VPN) or DNS Proxy. Geolocation spoofing enables the spoofers to appear to be in a different country, state or territory than where they actually are.
Although there are different reasons why someone would want to fake their location, the most common one is to get access to region-locked websites and services. For example, to watch Netflix content available only in the US also in Europe (the content is often different because of copyright and licencing issues) or to visit government-restricted sites (such as Facebook in China).
Synonym(s):
- Geo-spoofing
