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8 November 2009
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Online Services Guidelines in Full

Editorial Integrity & Independence

• Introduction
• Links to external sites
• Criteria for linking to external sites or other content
• Factual accuracy
• Examples of appropriate linking to external sites
• Editorial checks
• Disclaimers
• Links to sites which do not share BBC editorial values
• Controversial content
• Undue prominence
• Automatically generated links
• References to BBC commercial channels, services & products
• Trails on bbc.co.uk for commercial products related to BBC programmes
• Sites for BBC commercial magazines
• On-Air Trails for BBC online services
• Use of commercial logos on BBC sites
• Outside providers of material
• Programme support material
• Programme support material for makeover programmes
• Programme support material for independent productions & co-productions
• Credits
• Production credits
• Placing of credits
• Photographs in credits
• Logos as credits
• Animations, movies & videos
• Credits & links
• Third party software for visitors to BBC sites
• Software downloads
• Logos & credits within software commissioned by the BBC

References to BBC commercial channels, services & products

We must not use our publicly funded services to promote any BBC commercial services.

Publicly funded services should not run trails for commercial channels, services or programmes.

The BBC and independent companies working for the BBC produce and license commercial products and services to enhance and complement our output. However we must never give the impression that we are unduly promoting any commercial products. All references in our online services to BBC related products must be for clear editorial reasons and there should be no element of plugging.

BBC magazines

We must take particular care not to promote BBC magazines and we must ensure that:

• no BBC online site mentions a BBC magazine in a way which could be deemed promotional or an encouragement to buy
• any use online of BBC magazine editors or writers is clearly editorially justified and BBC magazine staff are not used too frequently
• no mention is made online of any off air support given by BBC publications. For example, if entry forms for competitions appear in BBC magazines we must not refer to them online.

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