I’m just trying to find out when a Showtime series will be airing on a Canadian affiliate network, as well as get some background info on a series’ production. But trying to go to Showtime’s website, I get and error page that says:
“We at Showtime Online express our apologies; however, these pages are intended for access only from within the United States.”
Is it a matter of broadcast seasons being scheduled differently and therefore it’s preventing spoilers?
Why not also add links to the major affiliates that carry their programs?
(Example: If Queer As Folk is in season 17 in the U.S. and only season 2 in Canada, that makes sense to keep people from peeking ahead. Otherwise, the series official site is being blocked from my computer and that’s kinda weird to me.)
Not sure what their non-US beef is really. Maybe it has something to do with ordering their services? They may be working under some interstate commerce, or FCC or ??? laws, I don’t know … hmmm …
FWIW, Canadian here who on seeing your post went off to the U.S. Showtime website. I didn’t have any problems getting onto the website, and certainly didn’t get the kind of message you described.
FWIW I talked to the people at movielink.com, he said the reason was because their service is not available outside the US at this time (scratching my head on that one, what difference would it make if I flew to Mexico and downloaded a movie?), but anyway, my second thought is that is might have something to do with encryption. Encryption is a slippery subject in the international community, it seems like the US has an agreement internally about it, but you have to be careful about encryption when you are dealing with people outside the US.
But anyways, give it another try, maybe you just got glitched like I did.
PastAllReason tried your link, using a different (but still Canadian) ISP and I still got the error.
ccwaterback that makes some sense.
But for general information or corporate info that would be backasswards!
For example, if I was a journalist writing about the differences in TV show programming, or a potential investor (I do have stocks in American companies, after all), I’d be SOL.
I can understand blocking off spoiler pages, as in my OP. If some countries are a few season’s behind, you don’t want folks to be able to look ahead. But the entire site. So not even general info about the network is accessible?
SHO.COM is committed to protecting the privacy of its visitors and has prepared the following statement to inform users how personally identifying information and non-personally identifying information is gathered from our website and used by SHO.COM. SHO.COM encourages its website users to be smart about choosing when, and to whom, to release information online. This policy may change from time to time, so please check back periodically. Please note that SHO.COM is intended for use by United States residents only and, therefore, SHO.COM’s Privacy Policy is specifically directed only towards residents of the United States.
Hmm … maybe something to do with “privacy” issues outside the US?
I definately agree with your ideas. One thing though, Showtime is owned by Viacom.
IIRC, all of AOL’s IP addresses are traced back to Virginia, where AOL is located. Which is to say if someone did a lookup on your address, it would appear that you are in Virginia.