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YOU ARE HERE > HOME > CIO > Article
The ability to link from one Web site to another is what makes the Internet different from any other kind of mass communication. Take it away and you have, at best, an online library, but with no easy connection to other subjects. Visit any Web site and you'll likely find a link to another site. At TechRepublic, for example, we routinely include links to other organizations, businesses, and publications in the material we publish. Much of the time, the links we include take the user past the home page, deep into another Web site. The practice, called "deep linking," may be easier for users, but Web sites that use it are on uncharted legal ground. Though there have been instances where the practice has been challenged in court, all have ended in settlements leaving no legal precedent. In the meantime, there are several court cases in the works that could eventually decide whether deep linking is legal. Link to the home page Harvey Jacobs, a Washington D.C. lawyer, likens deep linking to buying a magazine without the front and back covers. On his Web site, Jacobs calls deep linking "unlawful" and advises those who want to link to another site to go to the home page. Jacobs contends that since some businesses are paid for the number of hits on their home page, deep linking deprives those Web sites of revenue. It can also be unpopular with advertisers since, for example, deep linking sends users past banner ads on the home page. Deep linking can also bypass frames and navigational tools placed on a site's home page, inhibiting the user's ability to maneuver the Web site. "This is a situation that's unique to the Internet," Jacobs said. John Vassiliades, a lawyer with Perkins-Coie in Washington D.C. said that deep linking's main problem is that it is set up without authorization from the owner of the site users are linking to. "I think universally people recognize that deep linking could present infringement problems," Vassiliades said. "The owner of the Web site that is being linked feels damaged." Choose deep linking In many cases, deep linking allows users to sift through the layers between them and the information they need, said Jeffrey Kuester, an Internet law specialist at the Atlanta law firm of Thomas, Kayden, Horstmeyer & Risley. Information, for example, that might only be accessible through a search using keywords might leave some users struggling to find what they need. "If you don't put in the exact word, if you're looking for an article or something, you may not find it," Kuester said. "Whereas if somebody else has already found it, and they want to give you the link right to it, what's wrong with that?" There's also the argument that if a business puts up a Web site and invites people to use it, it's difficult to complain later that people are reading it. And linking to other sites is part and parcel to the Web. "The usability and power of the Internet is crippled without hyperlinks," Kuester said. "The World Wide Web is not a Web without hyperlinks." [ Page 1 2 ]
Corporate Internet Planning Guide : Aligning Internet Strategy with Business Goals — Gascoyne, Richard J. A New Vision for Staff Development — Association for Supervision and Curriculum
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| 12/28/99 