BBC was one of the world's first media organizations to provide inline links to the Web, and in some ways its innovation made a lot of others think through strategies that were keeping (or trying to keep) users inside networks.
The idea was what the New York Times described as "editing the Web," and it meant there was nothing inherently wrong with sending users to external, related sites, because ultimately they could find them, anyway, and it was better to be that central resource than to just be another stop on the trail.
Now BBC has decided to discontinue the strategy, which it had been presenting with the Apture software firm, as it reviews policies. In reading between the lines of its announcement, it might be that the issue is more that it is disappointed with the technology than with the principle --- after all, nearly 90 per cent of the user comments on inline links suggested they were helpful. It sounds as if this is a temporary measure, not a permanent policy.