Redirects: Legal issues

Any case studies?

[craig1972]

Hi,

I run a simple URL shortening service, which takes long URLs and shortens them. Of course under the hood the concept is simple redirects.

Let's call my site

Redirect.com

.

One day, a regular

User

of my site finds some random Url onthe web,say

Longurl.com/something/somethingelse.html

.

He shortens this url to

Redirect.com/xyz

.

Now, I don't know the

User

and I don't know the website

Longurl.com

.

But the administrator of

Longurl.com

writes to me requesting me to delete the shortened URL because "he doesnt like redirects" (I am guessing the reason is SE rankings or something, but he doesnt mention any reason).

When people write to me with requests to disable on grounds that a shortened url is being used for malicious purposes, such as spam, I immediately delete them and in some cases, disallow the

User

(who had shortened that url) from my site altogether.

But in this case, it seems to be a very legitimate use of perfectly normal redirect functionality, which is allowed by the HTTP protocol. When someone clicks on this shortened url,

Redirect.com/xyz

he is instantly taken to the long url,and the browser clearly shows the long url, so it's not like hijacking or illegal use of content or anything. It's just a short url that doesn't wrap in email software.

Philosophical issues of url shortening aside, this administrator of the site

Longurl.com

has written a fairly rude email threatening legal action. I am not overly worried, but I'd like to know if there are any case studies that I can look at? Tried a search for "redirect law" or "redirect legal" and did not find anything that speaks of my particular situation.

Hope I have explained it clearly. Would appreciate any pointers or advice!

[trillianjedi]

Hi Craig,

We can't do legal advice in here I'm afraid, You need to ascertain the legal position by talking to a lawyer.

Any advice pertaining to be legal posted in these forums you will have to take with a pinch of salt ;-)

Irrespective of legality, I link to other sites all the time using anchor text. It seems to me that you're doing nothing different.

TJ

[monkeythumpa]

I have never heard of anybody being held responsable for linking to another site. (At least in most "Western countries") You can link to anybody you want, as long as you are not causing harm. A simple link should be harmless.

[freeflight2]

just add a "ignore-domain" feature to your site so you can add domains of webmaster who don't like what you are doing

[craig1972]

Thanks for your thoughts everyone.

freeflight2, "ignore-domain" -- is this an HTACCESS directive or something, or just a concept from you? Thanks!