Itunes linking to home country site not the US site!

Question

Can anyone answer the following or state how it can be changed on the box if due to settings?
itunes top music videos - this takes you to top music vids on the itunes USA site, not for instance the itunes UK site. Most if not all US vids are not available on the UK site. Yet the UK site has it's own top 10 vids that are available????
itunes top songs - same as above
itunes top movies - top 10 download for US site but point taken as no movies/tv shows yet available from UK site.
Imac G5   Mac OS X (10.4.2)   Apple TV

Answer 1

Its a bit technical, so bear with me:
All users originate from a public IP address when accessing a site (be it web site, ecommerce site, bank, or iTunes).
That IP address can be revealed by going to a website like www.whatismyip.com.
From this IP address, Geo-location information can be gathered -- this means that it is possible (with a good degree of accuracy) to determine where in the world you are making your request from.
So, for example -- if you log into an ISP in the States, and hit www.cnn.com, you will appear as a US consumer in their log files. If you hit that web page from Hong Kong, they will know you're from Hong Kong. Some web sites will automatically redirect you to the nearest server to give you the best performance possible. Sometimes e-commerce sites will subscribe to a service, such as Quova to give them richer Geo-Location data about their consumers.
Here is an example of a Quova look-up for the www.apple.com IP address:
Name: eg-www.apple.com
IP Address: 17.112.152.32
IP Type: Mapped
Continent: north america
Country: us
Region: southwest
Metro City: sacramento
Metro State: ca
State: ca
City: sacramento
Zip: 95899
Latitude: 38.581902
Longitude: -121.493500
Timezone: -8.000000
DMA: 862
PMSA 6920
Connection Type: tx
Line Speed: high
Top Level Domain: com
Second Level Domain: apple
IP Routing Method: international proxy
AOL: 0
ASN: 714
Carrier: apple computer, inc.
Area Code: 916
Message: proxy
It tells us the following information: This host is connected via high speed ehternet (probably gigabit ethernet) to a data center operated by autonomous system number 714 (Apple Computer) in Sacramento, California in area code 916. The IP address is registering as a PROXY because it is believed that more than one machine is located behind that IP address. It is likely that this IP address is a virtual IP address on a load balancer for which there are multiple machines behind it (probably behind a Network Address Translator).
This information can be gathered for every user that hits the web site -- if it is determined that they originate in London, they can automatically direct you to a London version of the iTunes site regardless of what you may configure as your location.
IP addresses are managed at a high level by registrars around the world - there are many, ARIN in the US, RIPE in Europe, APNIC in Asia Pacific, etc. Generally speaking, Internet Providers are only supposed to allocate addresses out of ranges in the region they are currently sitting in. This becomes difficult when, for example, you are a provider which gives customers internet access by way of satellite. You may know that a single satellite can provide access for a large region - sometimes many countries simultaneously -- The question then becomes what IP allocations do you give. This is why you can not completely rely on information located at the registrar and companies such as Quova have been able to corner the market with Geolocation data. They collect information in many ways -- in addition to the registrars they also have analysts who continuously contribute to the information to make it more accurate. The database can be updated several times a month based on this new information.
Hope I've been able to help.
Golan.