We’ve changed how you comment on TopGear.com

We’ve made a little change to the way you interact with your favourite car website. Not interact in the sense of ‘remove all metal items and walk through this scanner slowly’, more ‘how you can continue arguing robustly about cars with one another in a peaceful manner’.

You’ll now need to use your main BBC account username and password to log into TopGear.com if you want to leave a comment.

For UK users, that’s the same account you use for a range of BBC services like iPlayer (where you can watch every single series of Top Gear telly), Sounds (where you can listen to stuff like the Top Gear Ultimate Driving Mix), Weather (to… see if it’s raining so you can stay inside and watch Top Gear on iPlayer?) and so on.

If you’re outside the UK, or don’t have a BBC Account, don’t worry. Setting one up is super easy – you’ll be given a prompt when you attempt to comment on a story. That’ll throw up a link to register a shiny new one.

‘Wait,’ you cry, ‘what about all my amazing comments I’ve made so far?’ Don’t worry – these will remain on site, you just won’t be able to edit or remove them. They’re now immortalised for all time, or at least until The Stig finds out where we keep our servers.

‘Wait,’ you cry again, ‘what about my old username?’ That’ll remain connected to your now-immortalised archived comments. For the new setup, you’ll need to either a) select a new username, or b) use your original username, assuming somebody hasn’t pinched it. If they have, you’re looking at c) engage in a friendly bout of tic tac toe to reclaim your old one.

‘Wait,’ you cry a final time, ‘why the heck are you doing this?’ Because using your BBC account to log into The World’s Greatest Car Website is safer and more reliable for you, ensuring much better protection of your personal information. Some say it’s guarded by The Stig, and everyone knows his feelings on GDPR.

It also means we can introduce new features and improvements further down the line, like being able to argue in holographic real time, or frickin’ lasers or something. Not sure about the lasers actually.

Anyway, got any queries? Email us at editor@bbctopgearmagazine.com, and we’ll get someone on it. Just as soon as we’ve finished explaining GDPR to Stig.

(Quick note: TopGear.com is still run by BBC Studios, which is the BBC’s commercial arm. Click here for our privacy policy)