I imagine that I was not the only one to be stunned by the presence of advertisements on the bbc website today. Reading the comments on the editors' blog, it seems that a lot of us "international" readers are unhappy to see them but would be willing to pay a subscription/licence fee to get full content as permitted by people in the UK.
I didn't notice to be honest. Actually, I wasn't even aware that it *didn't* have ads before. It makes no differentce to me.
I had read that they were going to do it. I never pay any attention to ads, wherever they are, so they don't bother me.
It's bothering me because they are moving and I always have to make my window smaller so I can't see them - I don't do well with moving parts on a website - especially if they flicker. I have also noticed that some of the UK pages don't have them - especially the local ones.
I don't like the ads, but would rather have those than pay a subscription.
People in the UK pay for the service through the license fee. I think it is only fair that those of us who do not have to pay the license fee should make some contribution, this seems the least painful and probably the most cost effective.
That said KG, I too find some of them distracting.
In theory, you could easily avoid this by going through a proxy server which would fool the BBC server into thinking you were UK-based. It's the same principle savvy users in countries like Egypt, Iran, China etc. use to bypass their government's draconian censorship laws with regards to what pages they can and cannot access over the Internet.
In practice however, you'd really want your own proxy server, rather than use a public, open one because they are too easy to compromise and you'd open up your computer system to a lot more spam at best and possibly much more.
I still keep one eye open though for options for the future - it would be nice to have Radio Five Live serve up England commentary, rather than that stupid, patronising message that says you can't hear it due to contractual issues.
It doesn't bother me, but didn't a couple of the commenters mention ad blocking add-ons for Firefox worked for them?
I just looked. Adblock Plus. Firefox Add-on; "Right click on the banner, select Adblock and it won't be downloaded again" So it saves time as well.
https//addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865
what ads -?
I have the UK version chosen rather than the international version. Maybe if you did the same you wouldn't get the ads?
Not true Ben - I always have the UK version selected too - but the ads seem to be present inconsistently. Today they were on the World and UK pages but not on the England, Wales or Kent pages.
I see this has been moved to the Entertainment section.... I wonder where in "Entertainment, British TV, anything TV, Film, Live Music and of course Radio" a news website fits in.... Had I seen "websites" in that list I would have posted it there in the first place roll
Not true Ben - I always have the UK version selected too - but the ads seem to be present inconsistently. Today they were on the World and UK pages but not on the England, Wales or Kent pages.
That is my experience too. Also they sometimes have abanner ad across the top... and sometimes not. I guess they are are having some teething troubles, or perhaps playing about with it to guage the response of users.
The BBC claim that their software can identify whether you are accessing the site from inside or outside the UK and that is what determines whether you get the ads - not what you view.
That said, people pay for ads and I suspect that an international advertiser is more likely to pay for an ad on a page showing important international news that millions around the world will want to read - than some minor news item from the English regions that, outside the UK, is of interest to a few thousand expats.
Hence the lack of ads on the local stories.
Not true Ben - I always have the UK version selected too - but the ads seem to be present inconsistently. Today they were on the World and UK pages but not on the England, Wales or Kent pages.
Sorry then. I've never had adverts as far as I am aware and I go onto the BBC website almost every day :-? I don't know what I am doing differently then.
I only noticed the ads yesterday, mainly cos there was this banner ad down the side with moving print asking me if I'd noticed anything different. It was a lightbulb moment. roll
In theory, you could easily avoid this by going through a proxy server which would fool the BBC server into thinking you were UK-based. . . it would be nice to have Radio Five Live serve up England commentary, rather than that stupid, patronising message that says you can't hear it due to contractual issues.
That was my reason for trying a proxy but it seemed a bit too complicated to figure out.
Sad to see this on the BBC, as Annie said, I had a lightbulb moment after I saw a flash panel on the right. I use Firefox with flashblock plugin, works fantastic.