Being an American Websurfer in London Sucks!
Hello. Currently in London. Oh, by the way, every time I try to watch a video, I get the following messages. WTF, it’s not like I’m in a cave in Afghanistan. I’m in goddamn England! It must suck being here — half the sites I visit, I can’t access the content. Thanks for ruining the WWW, you evil corporations. (And that was suppose to stand for WORLD wide web.)
Thank God those evil Englanders can’t watch the SNL Digital Short of Natalie Portman rapping on SNL. That’ll show ‘em for not giving us our independence. Instead, through IP lookups and cookies, I get wonderful localized ad banners that make no frakin sense… Like the following banner ad when I visit Buzz Newsroom:
Lastly, my “nice” hotel doesn’t even have Wi-Fi. Guess what, I’m charged .50 pounds PER MINUTE to use the Internet. That’s going to cost me what, in currency exchange, $75 to write this post?! Crap… And this is what I see when I log into Facebook. Maybe I’ll just drown my sorrows. Cheers!
March 17th, 2009 at 4:21 am
Well, I know restrictions on contents are a bitch here. Even from Brazil I can access most of that content without problem. But I don’t know about your Wi-Fi problem. You can probably use something like Boingo if you want cheap access for a few days, or even buy a cheap G3 dongle. In every single hotel I have stayed here they provide free Wi-Fi though, although some limit that to the lobby.
On the flipside, you can access the BBC’s iPlayer and channel 4 content for free ;)
March 17th, 2009 at 8:59 am
Tis a beautiful sunny day, there are better things you could be doing in London right now than watching bad US TV on Hulu :P
Flippancy aside, though, I sympathise/agree, that geolocation “sorry piss off we don’t deal with your country” stuff is annoying.
Wifi protip: sod paying your hotel, there are plenty of places you can get it free. Go to a starbucks or maccy d’s or something?
June 25th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
If you ask me Boingo sucks. I was pissed too, they did the same thing to me and refused to refund the extra charges. I live in FL, but Bogus Boingo Wireless is based in South Santa Monica, California. I wrote the attorney general there and asked him to investigate Boingo business practices. I have also filed a complaint with the FL state attorney and the CA Better Business Bureau. That is not all, I am on a mission. I bought ihateboingoDOTcom I am currently working on the website. Boingo needs to be exposed, they are conducting the same business practices that Blockbuster had attempted and looked where it took Blockbuster. If you do a search online, you’ll see people complaining about fraudulent charges from all over the world. They will give you access alright as long as you give them unlimited access to your bank account. Here is my story
I was on vacation flying from ATL (Atlanta) to CDG (France). Since I was going to arrive to France late, I needed to contact my hotel and the car rental agency to let them know that I would arrive late. Unfortunately I had no way to call, my only option was through the Internet. When I fired up my browser, one of the option was Boingo – Bogus. I thought I sign up for just a month – a month later I was charged for another month. When I called to cancel the service, I was on hold for almost half hour. When I finally reached someone from customer service, she was very unhappy with me because I was canceling the service. The last monthly charge was on 6-15-09. I had sent an email to them instructing them to cancel the account and refund the $9.95. I got an email back saying please call customer service to cancel. To make a long story short customer service failed to refund me the $9.95 even though I have only used their service once. Boingo just made the biggest mistake because I will let the world know how sucks their service is. I enjoy demolishing greedy companies like Boingo. I was a big advocate when Blockbuster decided to sell movies to customers if they didn’t return them without making customers aware of the charge beforehand – that has resulted blockbustervictimsDOTcom . I predict that Boingo will go out of business pretty soon if they continue on this path. The service itself is a mith, they are doing the same greedy things that several companies have tried and continue to do until someone like Math and others say enough is enough. It’s good that they monitor blogs, but I don’t think they’ll be able to keep up – soon the internet will be flooded with hating Boingo Wireless website and I’ll be the first one to put one up and report them. Bogus Boingo, you are in for a fight – see you on ihateboingoDOTcom and how about Bogusboingo.com GREED MY FRIEND, IT WILL TAKE YOU NOWHERE
A CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT IS NEXT – LOOKING FOR A LAWYER THAT WILL TAKE THE CASE