 More than 30 million Netflix subscribers use the service via a proxy server or virtual private network (VPN); doing so can make a user appear to be located in a country other than the one they are actually in, thus allowing them to use the service to access content that Netflix does not offer in their region, due to geographical licensing restrictions.It is unclear whether accessing geo-blocked content via VPN violates local copyright laws, but content providers and other broadcasters have asserted that it is illegal because it infringes local rights to content that may have been sold to a competitor.GlobalWebIndex showed about 20 million of such VPN users came from China alone.