European Access

[Snider]

Ray - I just came back from a three week vacation in London, Scotland, and Ireland. I was not able to access Baseball HQ at any of the locations in Europe. Why are we not able to plug into this great site across the Atlantic? I have never gone this long without Baseball HQ access ever.. Thank you very much.

[RAY@HQ]

Yeah, this is super frustrating; happens to a few of our customers every summer. To say nothing of the EU customers who we flat-out turn away.

It's corporate policy. I scream about it annually, to no avail.

[usualsuspects]

I can offer you an easy and free work around from a recent trip to Greece.

Using a laptop?

Download the free Opera browser. Toggle the included VPN by the address bar to “on”. It will offer you a few options to set your virtual location. Usually defaults to Netherlands so select US. Bingo you are back in the states and can access HQ normally.

Using an iPad or iPhone?

Same idea, just slightly harder to execute. Download a VPN app. I recommend the free Proton VPN based upon it being the only one I have tried and working perfectly. There are a few steps to install and activate it which I have forgotten, but certainly a bit harder than putting Opera on a laptop (note that Opera on an iPad doesn’t work). Then you will have a new slider under “Settings” to turn your VPN off and on. Again you will need to select US as your region. This worked great for me and my impression was it might have even speeded things up slightly.

[Snider]

Thank you very much. We are going on a Rhine River Cruise next summer and I will try your solution. But I'm back home and all caught up from the days away. Not surprised there was a lot of really great content that was missed real time. I think I may have to tell my wife that Europe is off limits for vacation during the season. At least in the offseason - missing out real time isn't as costly as i know my league mates all have subscriptions. I am kidding but wish I wasn't.

[JonE]

That corporate policy Ray mentions is based in EU regulations that require companies to do lots of heavy lifting and managing of the data of users in the EU, so I am not surprised that the USATSMG overlords have just decided they don't want to deal with it. Baseball is, ahem, a product with little European presence or potential audience; ditto most Gannett products.

[Snider]

Hi Jon - I understand the logic and the realities of the situation. But let me bottom line it for you. Baseball HQ is THE ONLY website that covers baseball that I use regularly that cannot be accessed in Europe. I use dozens of sites so it is a large sample size and those sites work normally. So whatever the reason or rationale, it is frustrating nonetheless.

[JonE]

Oh yeah, I completely understand your frustration. My point is only that this is probably not an issue that Ray is going to be able to fix. (Although he might be able to interest his overlords in the fact that their competitors are investing in solutions.)