There are two interesting stories about the Olympics over at Slashdot. First is a chilling story about the restrictions placed on athletes. They are not allowed to blog about the Olympics while it’s going on. They’re permanently prohibited from ever publishing photos taken at the games, even if those photos are of themselves or their teammates.

Then there’s the story about “advertising terrorism”. Apparently, if you have a soda, flag, unbrella, purse, shirt, whatever from a competitor to official Olympics sponsors, you can have that item confiscated. The comments in that story are interesting too. One poster wrote about the political control exerted there as well. Taiwanese flags were confiscated.

It seems that the Olympics is now less about the athletes than the advertising show. Serios reform is needed at the IOC for sure.