I can see an issue pretty fast with this. It's clearly been devised from an Urban point of view, Restricting to a 20mile radius in Rural Areas is a nonsense.
If they’re using your public IP address to geolocate, then it isn’t going to work. My IP address places me incorrectly, but unsurprisingly, 50 miles away in Canary Wharf
I can see an issue pretty fast with this. It's clearly been devised from an Urban point of view, Restricting to a 20mile radius in Rural Areas is a nonsense.
If they’re using your public IP address to geolocate, then it isn’t going to work. My IP address places me incorrectly, but unsurprisingly, 50 miles away in Canary Wharf
They ask your browser for your location, which on modern OSs means the browser then asks the OS where am I.
Websites can use your IP address to provide local stuff without asking your permission, because to be fair IP addresses are useless for location data.
If you try the find location button on the BBC website, your location will be reported by the OS using various things - GPS of available, lists of local WiFi networks and just about any useful data it can get it's hands on. With Windows, you can set your location in settings manually, and that will be passed on to the browser.
If you're in a rural area, remember these pages are automatically generated - they could in theory have a local page for every hamlet in Britain.
Interesting development on the Radio iPlayer, long mega programmes over 2-3 hours long, that are chaptered, Radio 3's Sacred River 6 hour programme from late November for example, are now being sent to users on the web, via PCs, in chaptered chunks not in one long stream. Impressive and the gaps between chapters are infinitesimal in the whole scheme of things too.
Here's an interesting section of the BBC Website that I've never seen before, bbc.co.uk/historyofthebbc. I was just looking at my YouTube sub box, when the BBC uploaded the following, with the video thumbnail catching my eye.
Not sure if it's an oddity of the WiFi at my local library but I get sent to bbc.com/news when I use a browser on mobile to try and get to bbc.co.uk/news. Yes I should really use the app but I don't want to.
Mind you the Daily Mail site defaults, on the same Wifi connection, to the US section so I suspect this and the bbc.com thing are "we think you're not in the UK" issues based on the IP addresses the sites see.
When I use a VPN based in the UK, Google sites are redirected to the UAE. Doesn't affect UK based streaming services, except iPlayer where the BBC have been proactive in stopping viewers from using the tv part of iPlayer overseas.
I managed to hop onto the whatismyip.com site while at the library and the IP address reported to the site comes back as one that does map back to the UK. I can get to bbc.co.uk/news on the same browser on my phone on my home internet connection (Daily Mail still seems to think I'm in the US though even on my home connection).
There must be something about the configuration of the council's setup for WiFi public internet through the libraries that confuses the BBC site and makes it think I'm elsewhere. It's minor in the grand scale of things though
And that site is in need of updates. On the March anniversaries page, it mentions the Grand National debuting in 1960, saying it's still a big draw for BBC Sport today. But it left for Channel 4 some years ago and is now on ITV.
