Wouldn't it be awesome if someone who worked at Google made their 20% project to locate sites with T&Cs that ban linking and remove them from Google's index?
Doesn't Google provide a DNS server, too? If it was for me, they could delete if from the DNS server, too. In general I would like to have a DNS server that simply eliminates such sites.
At the same time, they could also knock down all houses that I am forbidden to photograph and burn all items that I am forbidden to photograph.
I once emailed Daniel Bernstein and received this fun reply before my email was let through:
Professor Bernstein has asked me to reject all bulk mail messages. But I'm a rather primitive computer program, and I'm not sure whether your message is bulk mail.
If you reply to this notice, you are (1) acknowledging that Professor Bernstein does not want to receive bulk mail; (2) confirming that your message is not part of a bulk mailing; and (3) agreeing to pay Professor Bernstein $250 if your message is part of a bulk mailing.
I won't look at the contents of your reply. A simple OK is fine, as long as it's sent to the address shown above.
Lets just say knowing his history, I probably wouldn't spam the man. (I didn't get a reply, btw).
I wonder if the folks who wrote the TOS for these sites even know what the www stands for in their URL? This is ridiculous, and the first court that upholds this nonsense should be ashamed of itself.
Reminds me of the apocryphal girls who run around in see through tops and say "don't look at my breasts!"
I mean, I totally get it if they have a paywall and they don't want their content released into the wild. But a public web page? C'mon.
I link to the BMJ all the time through work, they have never complained.
Also, the author is cherry picking the text he quoted. Here is the full text from the BMJ groups T&C:
"You may link to articles or the home page of the BMJ or BMJ Journals websites (excluding BMJ Careers and Veterinary Record) but with regard to any other of our websites, you must not deep link to any of our other websites or link to our home pages without our agreement in writing. You may not provide a link which suggests a form of association, approval or endorsement on our part, unless we have expressly agreed to this in writing. We reserve the right to withdraw any linking permission upon notice to you or by amending these terms and conditions."
I would argue they are pretty fair as the majority of their content is on the main BMJ site or on one of the microsites of their journals. (I am not associated in any way with them.)
I get the feeling that what these sites really mean is that you shouldn't deep-link to their images. They've just got it a bit wrong in the T&C. Especially when the sites say "we may disable the links", they surely just mean they'll prevent the images from showing when the refer(r)er is on a different domain?
I wonder if all of these are just legal CYA for what happens when someone does deep-link then the site is redesigned and those links no longer work. I can imagine some douchebag lawyer trying to make the case that a particular URL is a contract to provide some information at that location.
If that were the case I don't think they would state it in prohibitive terms like we are seeing. Instead it would just be a liability clause in the T&C. See for example RBS clause #9:
we accept no liability in respect of losses or damages arising out of changes made to the content of this website by unauthorised third parties
I've run across a few news sites with T&Cs like this. In those cases the goal appears to be preventing news aggregators from "stealing" their content by... linking to it.
Indeed. There are also lots of scanning services that go through websites to commercially exploit them. That's why you get these blunt T&C, which basically point out that you are accessing private property and need to ask permission.
An example might be a service that scans Eurostar's website for cheap tickets (i.e. loss leaders) and then consistently send (deep link) visitors who purchase the loss making tickets. While existing customers who are looking for the deal, can't find the cheap tickets, so become disillusioned.
It's really interesting that, in this "SEO is a perfectly valid marketing strategy" world, there are still cases like these. Who comes up with this rules? Who on earth thinks they are a good thing? The Peter Principle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle) jumps to mind.
