'Wi-Fi police' stalk Olympics to protect sponsors

Daktologist

Fuck sake, what will they come up with next :facepalm:

You've probably heard of the overzealous Olympic Games "brand police" harassing old ladies making Olympic cakes and other shop owners getting into the Olympic spirit, but how about the "Wi-Fi police"?
Sponsors pay tens of millions of pounds to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for exclusive rights to spruik their wares around London and beyond, and the IOC will stop at nothing to protect those revenue streams.
BT is the "official communications services provider" for the Olympics and has 1500 Wi-Fi hotspots at Olympic sites, with prices starting from £5.99 (NZ$11.40) for 90 minutes.
It's the largest single Wi-Fi venue installation in Britain, according to BT.
To protect this lucrative deal - and presumably minimise any potential technical interference - LOCOG, the London Olympics organising committee, has banned "personal/private wireless access points and 3G hubs" from Olympic venues.
Want to create a wireless hotspot on your smartphone so you can get online on your laptop or tablet in between matches? That's prohibited, as are portable Wi-Fi hotspot devices.
Sadao Turner Esq, director of new media for TV personality Ryan Seacrest's production company, tweeted a photo of the "Olympics Wi-Fi police" that are charged with seeking out unauthorised Wi-Fi hotspots with big red detectors.

Source

bornkiller

Fuck me! They have really taken this olympic thing to a whole new commercial level. Whats next? Olympic branded clothing?
Everyone should wear a black cape with a mask.

Slartibartfast

This is just ludicrous. The Olympic organisers don't even try to hide the commercialism anymore.

It's this type of penny-pinching that makes them look like dickheads.

Dfg

That's funny as hell. I mean I know they were really hammering everyone but a ban on Wifi even for personal use, that's going a bit too far. I honestly still that Britain is losing it and it's also losing any respect I had for it in the past. I guess it's time to blacklist that place from my visit zones unless they man up and fix their stupid policies.