Foreign surfers blocked from BBC's Olympics

Web users outside the UK are being blocked from the BBC's coverage of the Olympic Games, a condition of its rights agreement with the International Olympic Committee.

It is believed to be the first time that any traffic to the BBC site has been blocked to foreign traffic. The restriction applies to audio and video content which is designed for users with broadband internet connections.

"The BBC has secured the rights to broadcast live coverage of the Olympic Games online for the first time ever, to all UK home Broadband users," said a BBC spokesperson.

"As a condition of this agreement the BBC must ensure that the footage is not available to internet users outside of the UK. This restriction is possible using Geo-IP, which recognises where the computer is registered and shuts out anyone not in the UK."

The European Broadcasting Union reportedly paid nearly $400 million for broadcast rights for the BBC and other European networks. US broadcaster NBC is believed to have paid around $793 million.

The BBC Sport website typically attracts around one million users every day with peaks in traffic during major sporting events. The Euro 2004 football tournament and Wimbledon tennis championships earlier this year both attracted as many as 1.8 million users each day, and the Olympics are expected to trigger record visitor numbers.

The BBC Olympics site has been running since summer 2003 with full coverage launched in July this year. The 2004 Olympic Games began in Athens, Greece on 13 August.

More news from dotJournalism:
Reuters' Olympian coverage
Multimedia future for BBC

See also:
BBC Olympic coverage: http://www.bbc.co.uk/olympics
IOC: http://www.olympic.org
Athens 2004: http://www.athens2004.com
European Broadcast Union: http://www.ebu.ch/en/index.php
NBC:
http://www.nbc.com

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