Quote:
Originally Posted by somdcomputerguy
[a 'sponsor'] probably means an 'invite email' from a current user of that service. Like Gmail used to be when it started. - bruce
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I don't know of any providers who restrict registrations to a certain geographic area but permit users to issue invitations for accounts to others outside that area.
More likely, the mention of a 'sponsor' refers to the informal practice of getting in contact with a user who has the appropriate IP and is willing to open an account for someone outside the geographic area. Person A specifies the desired username and Person B opens the account from a permitted IP and hands off the account to Person A, who then changes the password. Even though Person B now has no access to the account and nothing further to do with it, the account is never formally transferred and the service does not necessarily know that the account is being used by a different person. Sometimes someone will offer to do that here on EMD, when a thread happens to mention that a provider under discussion will only permit registrations from a particular country. The practice is harmless enough, but it does have a few potential drawbacks and should probably not be done too often.