LSO ("Flash Cookies") and Media Player
Some users have noticed that they are no longer able to use the BBC's media player when they have disabled LSOs.
We have for some time employed LSOs in order to improve user experience of the media player by storing the last position of incompletely played programmes to enable the auto resume function and to remember a user's settings preferences. We also use them for statistical reporting to help us to better understand how our content is consumed. This reporting is on a strictly anonymous basis and we do not pass this data to any third parties. Users have always had the ability to disable LSOs so that this data is not stored, as explained in the Flash Cookies section on the BBC's Privacy site.
However, we are currently moving the media player to the latest version of ActionScript (an Adobe programming language) in order to deliver an improved media player. This is a complex process and will take several months of work by our technical teams. It means that for some of that time the media player will sit across both versions. The two versions of ActionScript are unable to speak to each other directly and we therefore need to use the LSOs as a tunnel to pass messages between the two.
We hope to be able to stop using LSOs for this technical purpose later this year but in the meantime you will not be able to disable LSOs without losing access to the BBC's media player. If you have disabled LSOs, you will need to re-enable them for the BBC website in order to use the media player.
Although this use of LSO is within the BBC's Privacy Policy I recognise that this is not an ideal situation. My technical teams are now working on completing the move to the latest version of ActionScript as soon as possible so we can remove the dependency. When we've done this users will once again be able to turn off LSO and still use the Media Player.
Thanks for your patience while we complete this work.
James Hewines is Head of BBCiPlayer
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Comments
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"However, we are currently moving the media player to the latest version of ActionScript (an Adobe programming language) in order to deliver an improved media player."
Would be interested to know if there was there any consideration of using HTML5 for this? Pros / cons, etc.
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@1 JoeAD:
There is already an HTML5 version of the iplayer, however it's reserved for Apple products.
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If you are using Firefox there is a free plugin called BetterPrivacy that will easily let you delete LSOs from everyone else other than the BBC.
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@Alex, and Sony PS3, and a couple of specialist STB and embedded TV software vendors. Tough luck for platforms the BBC doesn't like, like Free Software, Android, any of the growing number of noname Asian TVs with integrated web browsers (least the ones whose vendors don't go and get approved by the BBC), etc.
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@4 Paul
Is the PS3 using HTML5/MP4 now? I must admit I haven't noticed any difference recently and I'm sure it was using Flash originally.
Time to get Wireshark out methinks.
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Alex, yes it's using the same front-end as iPad, according to the Beeb (and the BBC list a Sony root CA in the client cert request for the stream delivered to the HTML video iPlayer).
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