World Cup | Web ‘geolocation’ enables broadband viewing
Rio de Janeiro | “We expect the World Cup will surpass [Big Brother],” says Antonio Carlos Silveira of Globo.com, website of the media conglomerate, referring to the popular reality show’s Brazilian version. The site, having gained Brazilian broadcasting rights, will show all World Cup matches live. The cost to subscribers? Five dollars. The critical technology, writes Andrew Baxter in the Financial Times (“World Cup to Tackle the Broadband Bar,” 3 May, p. 9 [U.S. edition]), is web geolocation, enabling host servers to determine the viewer’s location and to bar those from outside Brazil. Otherwise, the rights of other broadcasters would be infringed and Globo would face a nasty lawsuit from Infront Sports & Media, which handles such rights sales for FIFA.
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