Forum Moderators: phranque
For example ... if a porn site wanted to link to my company home page, there aren't any laws prohibiting them from doing so but I would absolutely sue them to get the link removed no matter how much it cost because I wouldn't want that association. I'm confident that I would win too given that scenario.
It's a good practice to ask for permission to link to someone - you can assume that most people will accept, but not everyone will. Whatever their reasons are, it's a good idea to respect their wishes. If you're running a directory and someone would like to be removed from it, you would do better to honor their request than refuse.
[edited by: digitalv at 5:58 pm (utc) on April 1, 2004]
So much easier to put up a page to anybody coming from your site saying "We don't want you because you're coming from HughMungnus - so go away".
I'm thinking more along the lines of not wanting to be associated with "X" site in any way... not so much blocking traffic from the people who come from there, but link searches or if someone were to stumble across it they may think I'm an advertiser or something.
Now that I'm thinking about it, this situation has actually come up for me. Some scam called "topsites" (also known as topsitez) lists you in their directory and then sends you an email saying "Your annual subscription fee of $x has not been paid. If you don't pay us by <whatever date> your link in our directory will be removed and our site will be updated to read that your subscription has not been paid."
Something to that effect - you may have seen it. Basically they want to force you to pay so you don't look like a deadbeat.
Anyway, I had a letter drafted and sent to them the next day via certified mail which informed them that I never subscribed to their stupid directory, never paid for a link, never asked for a free one, and demanded that they remove all links and references to my company from their site or face a lawsuit.
I've learned over the years that TELLING someone you're going to sue over the phone or e-mail has little effect. Actually having a lawyer send them a letter usually does the trick. If a customer says they're going to sue me, I tell them that it's company policy not to deal directly with anyone who threatens us with a lawsuit and that ALL further communication will take place through attorneys. I give them the lawyer's name, phone number, and mailing address for correspondence and end the conversation with "I look forward to hearing from your attorney" and hang up.
Usually I get an e-mail from them later apologizing and wanting to work out whatever the issue was, or I never hear from them again. Schmucks :P
But anyway that's off topic ... the point is that if someone asks you to remove a link, just do it. It will cause a bigger headache for you if you don't.
[edited by: digitalv at 6:06 pm (utc) on April 1, 2004]
Of course, this depends upon so many different factors (your reputation, the ref, etc) that each case is different.
The law on linking in the US and elsewhere is new and may be evolving. But from everything I have read a link can be considered similar to a reference or citation in one publication to another (remember how you had to learn to cite references to every source you used when writing papers for school?). There are cases where someone can violate your rights, such as making it appear that there is a connection between your site, or your business, and theirs. But it appears that a link, per se, does not violate your rights.
If you link to other sites in your directory you should not have any problem. However, if the other site owner does not want the link, or would prefer the link to a different page, it is probably best to honor the request unless you have a very good reason not to.
A good discussion on link law can be found in a paper, Link Law Revisited: Internet Linking Law at Five Years by Mark Sableman, 16 Berkeley Technology Law Review 1273 (2001), [law.berkeley.edu ].
If you have a real problem that is worth the cost, you should consult an intellectual property lawyer.
They lost.
If you understand German, here's the actual court-sentence: [jurpc.de ]
The press-clipping lost too: they went chapter 11 because of the years-long litigation.
The counter to that arguement is that many magazines have expensive full page ads between the front and the table of contents, requiring a reader to go through the ads looking for the table of contents. Yet it is perfectly legal for another publication to make reference to an article by giving the page number. That allows a reader to skip the TOC with the expensive ads. Deep linking is the same principle.
There have been several linking cases in Europe, both deep linking and linking in general without permission. The results have been mixed and are less settled in favor of the linking, compared to the US.
Maybe, in a certain legal jurisdiction, you can legally force somebody else to stop deep linking to you. But, since you still have the right to put up a page informing the visitor that you will not accept their custom because they are coming from a page whose views you do not accept, I believe that any legal ruling saying you "deep linking is illegal" is a load of balderdash which was ruled by a luddite.
And you can sue me if you don't agree ;)
I notice that, while some newspapers and magazines charge for access to online articles, others do not charge but still require registration and logon. This is one method to require that anyone who reads the article online gets there by way of the logon page where they are exposed to the advertising that pays for everything else.
There are also organizations with web site where no one, even someone following a link, can get to certain restricted information without log on with a member or employee id number.
Because of these technical methods, there is really no reason for any site owner to push to make linking or deep linking illegal. There are also sound legal principles why legal limits on linking could not become acceptable under US law.
