Slashdot Mirror
Unwanted Linking
parvati writes: "The weekly "cyber law journal" column in the NYTimes examines a case in which the Better Business Bureau requested that a for-profit site not associated with the BBB remove links to it (the BBB). Although the BBB did not threaten a lawsuit, a spokesperson did mention that they were developing software to prevent unwanted hyperlinking (in the name of 'consumer confusion')." We resisted running this story when it first hit, because it seemed like just another case of lack-of-clue-itis at the BBB. But at least they're getting a clue about how to stop people from linking with technology rather than threats.
You can deny access to a URL based on
*referrer*. I've done it before, when someone
I didnt like had links to some pages I had up.
Whenever someone clicked those links on their
pages, my site redirected them or gave them
a (selectable) error.
I believe its in the mod_referer stuff in
Apache; apache.org is down right now or
I'd give a URL. Anyways, its quite easy
to setup in Apache's config files.
Having a link to the BBB is tantamount to trying to give the impression that your company is on the BBB's "praiseworthy list". If you are not on that list, you're piggybacking your company in quite an unethical fashion...which of course immediately puts you on their list of "deceptive" companies.
Getting rid of the link is really the better approach...from an ethical standpoint.
Of course, ethics can sometimes be something a company has little of...
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
Yes, I've had code to do this in Perl on my website since late 1997. It's really not that difficult.
--
If you've got the "referer", why not redirect links from "guys you don't like" to pages that describe what you don't like about them.
If a non-BBB member makes it look like they're a member of the BBB, any referred links should go NOT to the front page, but to a page that either says "they're not affiliated with us" or "here's what's wrong with the company you just visited". I think that would stop the unwanted linking faster than anything else.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
top.location.target="_top"
if(window.location.target != "_top") {
top.location.href=window.location.href }
This will break you out of anyone's frames which was the biggest problem that the BBB was complaining about in this case. Frankly, it's just not right to link to someone else's content within your framset to make it look like their content is your work.
_____________
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
Yeah I love sites like that, so much that I try to link to the page with the information I care about.
Then it doesn't work, I silently swear at the moron who did it, and move on to a site that allows me to use it more conveniently.
If you can overload the referrer information, and any other browser state, sure. I'm not sure if you can do this easily from javascript or java (which I presume you would want to use).
That's questionable and probably has to be decided by the courts (sigh) eventually. I urge you to have a look at the Monsantos web site. An activists website which makes multiple use of the Monsanto trademark and has a site design which precisely resembles the Monsanto corporations old site. BTW: This is not a parody site.
Is it possible that Monsanto just doesn't care ? Given their history in litigation happyness it's not likely (but what do I know?). It's actually more likely that the activists can get away under some fair use doctrine.
Now, using a logo for a link is probably far less misleading then the example above.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
As is obvious: Me neither. But I figured it's a nice analogy :>
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
For example: Greenpeace should be very weary about corporations that are in reality environmental pigs, but try to obsfucate this by displaying the Greenpeace logo and link to their site.
Same applies for Amnesty International. Should Amnesty accept links from a government site of a country that is known to literally stomp over human rights, just so they can abuse the organization for a bit of PR of their own ?
Deep linking is another issue and I can accept a site owners desire that you enter through their main page (portal if you wish).
All that said, it should not be up to courts or legisilators to regulate this. This should be handled by software. Other advantages could be to display selected pages to "abusive linkers".
Just imagine a page like:
With such a scheme in place cheap PR tricks could be the equivalent of aiming a double barreled shotgun at your feet while pulling both triggers.ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
I'm sorry, but I'm surprised that no one has already pointed out the obvious: if you don't want linking, there are several methods of preventing linking.
I am writing an active-server Web site using PHP (nothing special about PHP, it could be as easily done in PERL or C or, I suspect, Visual Basic) that does not carry state information in the URL. No state information in the URL, no deep linking or even "shallow" linking. Any link goes to the "front door".
When I first heard about the BBB demanding that people bring down links, I was under the impression that the BBB didn't want any links to their site at all. The example that was cited in the report, though, did deep linking into the BBB side, but did it in such a manner that there could be some confusion about the association between the site in question and the BBB.
A footnote: not all links are "bad" in the eyes of the BBB. If you are a member of the Better Business Bureau, you are allowed to have a link from your Web site to the BBB in the context of "we support the principles of the BBB" or some such.
It's not confusing. If someone is pulling out the info into frames, then it's easy to jsut write Javascript to break out of them. Otherwise, check the referrer. Generally, the more links to your website from anywhere, the better off you are. Generally, the whole idea behind being on the web is providing as much info to as many people as possible.
Capture the client request header, change as appropriate, send new request to server, get response, send response to client.
If you have netcat, socket, netpipes, etc. this can be done in a shell script. With the LWP perl module it can be done in a couple lines of non-obfuscated perl.