Comply with location-specific laws, comply with your contractual agreements, prevent bypasses via VPN. Attorney generals can issue fines up to $10,000 per violation. Non-compliant websites risk being blocked at the ISP level in some US states, blocking your business.
When Texas HB1181 came into effect, VPN usage jumped. When Florida HB3 followed, the same thing happened again. When the UK's age-verification requirements were introduced, it happened again. In courts, lawmakers and licensors have made bypass methods by visitors your problem.
This applies to content restriction and recent age verification laws. But even contractual agreements with content owners will have location-restriction requirements. A VPN or spoofed IP is your responsibility to detect.
Attorney generals have the power to issue fines up to $10,000 per violation. Non-compliant websites risk being blocked at the ISP level in some states. Preventing non-compliance or contract breaches with your customers is crucial to your business.
With over 100 million requests per day, we analyze patterns at scale.
We don't rely on IP addresses
"IPs change. Identity doesn't."
Traditional VPN detection relies on static IP lists that create a game of cat and mouse. cside goes deeper.
| Approach | cside VPN Detection | Static IP Lists |
|---|---|---|
| Detection method | Behavioral indicators and network-level analysis | Known VPN IP addresses only |
| Accuracy | Detects even new or unknown VPN services | Only catches known VPN IPs |
| Response options | Flexible: block content, require verification, or allow with conditions | Binary: block or allow |
| Data source | 100M+ daily requests across the cside network | Periodic third-party list updates |
| False positives | Lower - uses multiple indicators | Higher - corporate VPNs often flagged |
| Adaptation speed | Real-time learning from network behavior | Slow - requires list updates |
| User experience | Customizable - you control the response | Hard blocks create friction |
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
We have a static list of IPs as a fallback. But our real value comes from indicators of VPN use itself. Not relying on the IP address as the indicator but instead the technology used to access the site. This means we can detect even new or previously unknown VPN services that wouldn't appear on any static list.
With over 100 million requests per day, the cside network analyzes network requests all day every day. We have unique visibility into network level fraud. IP lists are a dead giveaway so invested users will use VPN services that aren't on the lists. Its better to focus on the technology used to make a request and etect VPNs that way than to make static lists.
While you can use this context to simply block a user, that almost certainly creates a counter effect where a cat and mouse game unfolds.
With our solution and SDK, its easy to customize your web content to stop access to restricted content or require more bulletproof verification to offset the risk of using a VPN. We strongly encourage customers to build logic into their applications to perform stricter verification on VPN usage requests instead of bluntly blocking them.Because sometimes, you may want to allow a VPN as long as you know nothing fishy is going to happen.
When Texas HB1181 came into effect, VPN usage jumped. When Florida HB3 followed, the same thing happened again. When the UK's age verification requirements were introduced, it happened again.
This applies to content restriction laws, age verification laws and even contractual agreements with content owners. Content distrubution rights are usually restricted to specific jurisdictions and it can be your responsibility to detect VPN usage to comply with these restrictions. Attorney generals can issue fines up to $10,000 per violation and non-compliant websites risk being blocked at the ISP level in some states if age-verification is bypassed through VPNs..
Exactly, and we recommend doing it this way. Using our SDK, you can define exactly how your application should respond to VPN indicators. You might block access to certain content while allowing access to other parts of your site. You might require additional verification steps for users showing VPN indicators. Or you might simply log the detection for compliance purposes while still allowing access.
You get the data and tools to make decisions based on your specific compliance requirements and user experience goals.
The cside network processes over 100 million requests per day. This scale lets us identify behavioral patterns and technical indicators of VPN usage, not just maintaining a list of known VPN IP addresses.
When new VPN services come up or existing ones change their hosting provider our behavioral detection can identify them even if we've never seen those specific IPs before. We dig to the technology used to make a request and detect VPNs that way.