On April 28, Weibo officially announced the opening of the function of displaying IP territory, that is, users' microblogs and comments will display IP territory, which will be accurate to the provincial (municipal) level. Subsequently, wechat, Tiktok, today's headlines, Zhihu, xiaohongshu and other Internet platforms also followed up with the launch of the display IP territory function.
For a time, many so-called overseas big V and overseas up owners were called back to the "original form". For example, many IP possessions of so-called overseas tourism bloggers with millions of fans are displayed in China, rather than the overseas IP address they should display. Subsequently, the IP territories of some bloggers quickly changed from domestic IP to overseas IP, which aroused heated discussion among fans and netizens.
For this kind of phenomenon, some media pointed out that 6 yuan can change the business of IP territory. Through the service of IP proxy platform, the domestic IP address can be changed to overseas IP, so as to achieve the effect of hiding people's ears and eyes for bloggers who make a living from overseas content. It is precisely because of the exposure and hot discussion of this phenomenon that a gray business based on modifying IP address has surfaced.
In fact, the gray business of modifying IP has appeared many years ago, but this incident has once again brought this secret gray business into the public's view.
Tech planet learned that the grey business based on IP does not simply modify the subdivided services of IP, such as VPN, remote wool collection, proxy hanging, etc. According to the statistics and prediction of Hengzhou Bozhi, the sales of global mobile virtual private network (VPN) IP business alone in 2021 has reached US $650 million and is expected to reach US $1.4 billion in 2028.
The domestic IP based business is developing rapidly, but then there are some IP businesses around the gray area, many of which rely on IP business to make money.
IP gray business with a monthly income of 100000:
IP proxy, VPN, network connection
At present, IP based gray businesses are mainly IP agents, VPN and wool collection. The businesses under these sub categories are also the most profitable, and it is not difficult to earn 10000 yuan a month.
The recently popular modification of IP territory and IP agent business. The IP platform not only has a proxy modification IP package for several yuan, but also introduces monthly cards, quarterly cards and even lifelong service packages. For example, the lifetime service price of an IP platform is 500 yuan, which promises stable IP and can also enjoy the rights and interests of real person dynamic / static residential agents.
These IP platforms have hundreds of millions of IP addresses, which can cover the IP addresses of the United States, India, Russia and other overseas regions. Meet the needs of domestic and overseas bloggers to change IP territory.
Source / network
Li Xingyu, a blogger who has done overseas content on Weibo, told tech planet that there are not many domestic bloggers who really do overseas content. Previously, since microblogging has not launched the function of displaying IP territory, most bloggers can move content from youtube and other platforms to microblogging, and then change to overseas positioning, so they can change into overseas bloggers and attract fans on the platform. However, with the online display of IP territory function on major Internet platforms, these fake overseas bloggers have nowhere to hide, so they buy overseas IP on these platforms, Cover up.
"These bloggers are now trying to reach stable cooperation with some well-known IP proxy platforms in the circle. Although the service fee of such platforms is high, the quality will be better. They can only pay 500 yuan a month to the platform to obtain the overseas IP provided by the platform for them on Tiktok, xiaohongshu and Weibo. An IP proxy platform I know has received dozens of cooperation orders from users of Tiktok, Weibo and other platforms for one month It's not difficult to earn 10000 yuan, "said Li Xingyu.
In addition, VPN, wool collection and other industries also have IP needs.
As we all know, with the rapid development of cross-border e-commerce, more and more businesses begin to use VPN to do business on overseas platforms. It is precisely under this demand that a number of illegal VPN platforms have been bred outside the formal VPN platform. The biggest feature of this kind of platform compared with the formal VPN platform is that it is cheap or even free. For example, the annual service price of an illegal VPN is 188 yuan, which is 30% - 50% less than the same type of service price of some formal platforms. In addition, these VPN platforms will also provide free VPN services, but will require users to watch some advertisements, which has brought a considerable amount of advertising revenue to the platform.
Figure source / actual service price of a VPN platform
According to an insider, the monthly income of a VPN platform he knows has reached as much as 100000 yuan. Most users are fans of overseas stars and cross-border e-commerce businesses. They don't worry about having no customers at all. In addition, the platform will receive some advertisements to expand revenue.
In addition, the well-known wool gathering participants also need the help of IP. Because people who collect wool cannot always use the same IP address for activities, otherwise it is easy to be monitored and sealed by the platform. Due to the limitation of the platform on static IP, people who collect wool need to buy dynamic IP to prevent the platform from monitoring their IP. Moreover, some activities will limit the IP of different places, so the people who collect wool will also buy the IP of the place where the activity is located. Therefore, there is a large demand for IP in gray industries such as collecting wool.
Earn "the first pot of gold" by IP agent after 00
"IP based business is no longer a traditional business, but has also become the demand and business of many generation Z. it is not difficult to earn more than 100000 by IP agent after 00. I am also doing it, and the monthly income can reach tens of thousands of yuan," said Xiao Wang.
Xiao Wang is a sophomore. As a student after 00, he has made the first pot of gold in his life through IP business. At present, he has accumulated more than 100000. According to Xiao Wang, he was a freshman and began to do IP based QQ proxy business. QQ proxy is mainly to practice personal QQ level, which is a proxy service developed by those who can't complete the task of QQ level acceleration.
"Because in the 'Q session' (the nickname of people who play QQ professionally), many QQ users are persistent in the demand for high-level QQ. This is mainly because young people like to compare QQ levels. The higher the level, it seems that they speak harder in the QQ group." Xiao Wang explained.
Based on this kind of demand, Xiao Wang has established two thousand person QQ level groups. Many people in the group are discussing QQ level. The threshold of these groups is at least one crown user of QQ level. Many QQ users in the group have become Xiao Wang's main customers, up to about 1600 people.
Discussion on QQ level in Figure source / QQ group
Xiao Wang said that in order to meet the pursuit of generation Z for high-level QQ, someone has developed a QQ level generation hanging system, which is specially used to provide such services for generation Z. This generation hanging system can complete the official level acceleration task of QQ with one click, so that customers can reduce complex operations.
Since QQ level proxy is based on virtual IP, in order to prevent users' QQ from freezing due to remote IP, remote IP services will be provided. When users hang QQ level, they can choose their local IP.
Photo note / screenshot of QQ level proxy hanging
"Generally speaking, there are our proxy servers all over the country, which can automatically identify the common places of QQ, log in nearby, QQ is not different and frozen, and proxy hanging is more stable. In addition, you can customize the hang up time every day, and hang up as you like. The system carries out accurate acceleration detection for all items, which can ensure that there is no omission, and all items can be accelerated on the day of placing an order." Xiao Wang told me.
There are two kinds of prices: one is for single region, and the other is for multi region. The package for agent hanging is different according to the rights and interests of agent hanging. The general price is about 5-10 yuan per month. At the same time, quarterly card, annual card and permanent package are also launched. According to Xiao Wang, his customers mostly choose monthly and permanent packages, which brings him a monthly income of up to 10000 yuan.
In addition, according to Xiao Wang, the QQ proxy platform will also do agency business, which is divided into master station, sub station and agent according to the site level. Different levels of proxy websites provide proxy services with different permissions. For example, if you have an agent of the website, you can choose the proxy permissions at the master station and sub station levels. The platform provides proxy systems and services, and then charges according to some subdivided rights and interests, including check-in function, extended function and other services.
Xiao Wang chooses the agent at the master station level, so he can enjoy more rights and interests, and he has paid more than 200 yuan of permanent agency fee to the agent platform at one time, so Xiao Wang's cost is not much. Xiao Wang also said that as the biggest behind the scenes boss of the agent platform, they rely on collecting agency fee, and the water flow in a month should be hundreds of thousands of yuan, and there are not a few large platforms like this in the Q session.
Agent package of tuyuan / QQ level proxy website
Xiao Wang said that it is precisely because of the pursuit of high-level QQ by generation Z in QQ that this IP based proxy business is so prosperous and has survived to this day.
The Internet platform was shielded by the heavy blow of supervision
"The devil is a foot high and the Tao is a foot high". For the gray business behind IP, all parties began to fight hard.
Due to the strict requirements of supervision on real name authentication, the registration of domestic software basically requires real name authentication. Therefore, like the domestic formal IP proxy platform, users need real name authentication when registering and will be recorded in the background log system. As long as the relevant departments come to check and the proxy IP platform gives a time and IP address, they can locate the user. For those informal IP proxy platforms, you only need to ban the domain name.
In addition, according to insiders, it can also be cracked down from the demand side. With the current technical means, it is not difficult for the platform to check the operation of users modifying IP, so relevant rules can be formulated, such as sealing users who modify false IP and cracking down from the demand side. Moreover, since most of the websites of these IP platforms are undocumented websites, such undocumented websites can not be displayed in the platform.
Major domestic Internet platforms are also stepping up their crackdown on IP gray business. For example, Taobao, Xianyu and other e-commerce platforms prohibit searching keywords such as "IP agent" and will be blocked. QQ and other social platforms are also cracking down on QQ tagging. For example, the jump of the domain name in QQ is banned, and even the keyword "QQ tagging" will become a factor for some groups to be blocked. Therefore, in QQ groups, if the topic of tagging is discussed, knowledgeable people will replace "tagging" with the homonym "nerd".
According to insiders, in order to avoid the attack of the platform, IP business platforms will frequently change domain names or directly develop independent apps to avoid the ban of large platforms. However, insiders said that these avoidance methods have little effect. On the one hand, the cost of changing domain names will increase. In addition, since most servers are overseas servers, they may be banned by relevant departments and directly "taken out of one pot".
At present, both regulators and Internet platforms are stepping up the crackdown on IP ash production, and gather various forces including regulators, operators and enterprises. It is expected that the living space of IP ash production business will be curbed.