How to enable user registration for specific country and disable registration from all other countries?

Question

is their any method to enable user registration for specific country like only people from USA can register and all other users coming from other countries redirect to to a specific page showing them message that only people from USA can register to this site ?

Answer 1

After some thought, I have a better answer. Although keep in mind all of this can be circumvented by having a friend living in the US:

1. Credit card transaction - This is your best bet for verifying, however it's possible the person is foreign and has a US credit card, be it for business purposes, or to order things from the US. This will likely cost you money, and you'll be subject to finance & privacy laws
2. Mobile Phone SMS - This can be done using an external SMS service, but keep in mind I could take a holiday in the US, and buy a pay as you go phone, then use your service when I return to the UK, as a UK citizen. SMS services normally cost money, and you'll be subject to personal information laws Try http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sms-text-message/ or http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/quick-sms/
3. GPS - This would work, but, it assumes the other person can be trusted, and is easily spoofable. Numerous devices and browsers do not support this, and most desktop machines lack the hardware. Some browsers ask where the user is, letting them move to the US by choice. This also discriminates against American citizens on holiday elsewhere ( President Obama on holiday in Italy tries to get on your site? Nope, access denied )

All three can be bypassed or spoofed. All three require that the user trust you ( they're likely to leave the site in disgust or opposition, after all would you hand over your credit card details or mobile phone number to just anyone? ), also these details are all private, and are heavily regulated.

If your site is usable by non-US citizens, then you shouldn't limit yourself. If your site provides a service that is meaningless outside the US, then let them sign up if they choose but warn them that there won't be much point.

To summarize:

There are measures you can take, but the internet is inherently anonymous, and you can't be sure if the user is an American at a Russian computer cafe, or a Russian sitting on the whitehouse lawn.

Of Note

All three methods I pointed out are beyond the scope of this website, as they are not WordPress problems, but general problems. There may be plugins that can help, but thats a different question. You will certainly need help with credit cards ( beyond WordPress, you need to be able to handle raw credit details online, you can't just use a paypal or WordPress plugin, then there's compliance needed for your code )

Answer 2

Your best bet is to require them to enter a piece of information that is specific to the USA.

e.g. to limit UK people you would ask for a UK post code

Alternatively you could trust your users and ask them if they're in the USA.

Tracking users by their IP will get you some of the way, but geolocation databases aren't precise, or reliable, and you will have lots of false positives and negatives. It's also absurdly easy to get around via proxy websites, or SSH tunnels.

Thus without ISP cooperation, there is no guaranteed way of doing this.

As a non US citizen I would hope you're not depriving me of well earnt cookies!