Hacker News Reader

Comment by fredley | Hacker News Reader

Brits: The BBC is forbidden from undertaking any commercial activity within the UK in their charter. While obviously quite integral to the way the BBC works and is able to work, this sort of restriction is a weird side-effect.

View on HN

I'm a bit confused about why this is considered a commercial activity; there's no advertising, or paywall, or anything like that.

It likely takes its funding from private sources rather than the TV license.

Is the article blocked in the UK?

  > We're sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK as it is part of
  > our international service and is not funded by the licence fee.

Yes, somewhat of a surprise to me when I went to read it. Obivously I understand the reasoning behind it, but it's a weird side effect, particularly when it's available on a website that I assume isn't directly charging users, but I guess it's the best way to avoid any sniff of a conflict on the BBC's charter.

It has advertising on it, and that's probably not allowed for core BBC?

No, but previously it was possible to access some commercial BBC services in the UK in the past (I'm sure it was beeb.com, but could well be wrong). It was clearly marked as being a commercial site, etc., but I guess the landscape has changed with Internet advertising since then and it's far easier for your information to be exploited without realising it now?

As mentioned above, this archive link works: http://archive.is/hfA17

Brit on a corporate O2 mobile. Archive.io is for some reason blocked for under 18s

You can bypass obscenity filters with archive.io, so better block it. (is the thinking)

Does your corporation hire many under-18s?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com