You May Not Link This Web Site

Ganon34 sent us a funny story about a company requiring permission to link their website. The company in question is KPMG, a financial and legal advisory company, and the article itself is an entertaining read about the aftermath of them sending demands that someone remove a link to their public web site. It's a pretty funny piece -- especially the part about KPMG's theme song. Also references the old ticketmaster vs ticet.com case that held up deep linking. It's all funny 'cuz its true. Their page could also use some testing since it doesn't render in my browser.

Comments

Freedom of the Press

[Renraku]

Wouldn't this be like hindering freedom of the press or something? That's like saying, "If you use our name in daily conversation, we'll sue you." Its almost as bad as companies trying to sue people because they give their products a bad review.

Re:Freedom of the Press

[Soko]

Errr... you seem to have hit upon an interesting conumdrum - is this like limiting freedom of the press or limiting free speech? I'm not sure if the two are actually separate or inexorably linked, but there is a difference.

When you publish a web page, should you be able to say that you are a member of the "Press" and afforded the same privileges, or do you get just plain old free speech rights (such as they are)?

Probrably not an earth shaking issue, but it may make any legal arguments interesting...

Soko

Re:Obligatory "old news" post

[fjordboy]

even google breaks the rules! google's simple search brings up many different links to kpmg

Re:so /. links to it?

[Cy Guy]

As did the WIRED story.

My question is search engines. Does KPMG expect every search engine to "execute an agreement" in order to include: results in their database and subsequently provide the results to their users?

It seems that if, is actually intent on enforcing this policy, then they should require a userid and password to access every page, and then only provide the passwords to websites that have "executed" agreements. Personally, it looks to me like () is doing a good job of executing themeselves.

BTW, if you would like to know more about , take a look at the excellent front page story the Washington Post did yesterday on How the Big 5 CPA Firms let their clients get away with multi-million dollar mistatements on their financial data resulting in masses losses for investors in those companies including many people whose pensions have been squandered. Here is what they have to say about KPMG:

Rite Aid shareholders alleged that consulting fees figured in KPMG's relationship with the drugstore chain, according to their class-action lawsuit against the accounting firm.

Rite Aid acknowledged last year that it had overstated earnings by more than $1 billion over two years. Audit fees were less than 20 percent of what Rite Aid paid KPMG over a 2 1/2-year period in the late 1990s, the suit alleged.

At one point, the suit alleged, Rite Aid's then-chairman, Martin L. Grass, awarded KPMG consulting engagements worth more than $1.5 million "as a sweetener and to ensure the accounting firm's continued cooperation."

An attorney for Grass said the allegations were "wrong" and "grossly unfair." KPMG was given a contract to address weaknesses in Rite Aid's inventory-tracking system, not to ensure cooperation, lawyer Andrew Weissman said.

KPMG said that it was "victimized by company management" and that the consulting it did for Rite Aid was "insignificant to the overall professional relationship."

So what's the problem?

[Restil]

Don't want people linking to your site? Fine. Then don't let them. When the webserver gets an HTTP GET request, check the referrer address. If its not coming from a "proper" link, then simply refuse to serve the page. No need to fuss about improper links. They simply won't work. And you'll be MORE than capable of keeping all those potential customers OFF your website. Who really wants customers anyways? All they do is provide you with more work to do. :)

-Restil

KPMG theme

[kilgore_47]

As the articles points out, KPMG has only gotten themselves into this embarrassing situation because they were unhappy about people making fun of another embarrassing situation: The KPMG Theme Song! It explains their power, strength, and global strategy (which must include really bad music).

(heres the akamai link to the mp3)

Re:Ugly Flash

[SanLouBlues]

It's quite possible that they were the submittors, the submittor doesn't even exist on slashdot.

Slashdot Theme Song!

[AwwShazbot]

Hey, whats the Slashdot theme song?

According to Google...

[thebabelfish]

...there are 2,800 sites that link to www.kpmg.com.

Jeez. That's a lot of contracts...

yeah, like it's the first time . . .

[hawk]

. . . that slashdot's been trolled . . .

THink about it. It you want massive hits to your website, can you think of any better way than to get slashdot to say you forbid links--with the inevitable "defiant" link? . . .

hawk

Lynx renders it just fine

[kindbud]

lynx -useragent='Mozilla/4.0 (lynx; faked; hahahaha)' http://www.kpmg.com/


After accepting or rejecting the five cookies they offer (one for the initial connection, one for having seen the flash, one for a session id, and some others for who knows what), the page appears, and looks like it was written especially for Lynx! All the images have alt tags, the text formats nicely, it's easy to read..

So now what was all that .asp redirection/browser-detection/eat-my-cookie BS for in the first place? When it comes down to it, they have a perfectly useable and readable site if they'd just dump all the fancy crap (which Lynx does for you quite nicely).

How it renders in Mozilla

[Tony Shepps]

If you're an IE user and want to see how other browsers manage kpmg.com:

How kpmg.com renders in Mozilla

They can enforce their policy

[Skapare]

If KPMG can enforce their policy easily enough by simply not delivering content when the HTTP request comes in asking for their site. They say they are "e-business savvy", so they should have no trouble setting this up in just a few minutes.

The web is about linking. That's why they call it "The Web". If KPMG doesn't want to join in, then they should just stay out. And there are many ways to do that, including still having a site served by HTTP to send content to whoever types their name in manually, or links from sites they approve of. They should just do it and prove their competence in running their site their way.

But why the hell would I want to link to their site anyway. It sucks! The whole damn thing is a morass of lame Javascript. They can't even put plain HTML in and have to have Javascript generate it. It's clear to me that they don't know how to do things on the server side.

Did he even violate KPMG's policy?

[frantzdb]

According to KPMG's disclaimer page:

Third Party Links are provided as a convenience to our users. KPMG does not control and is not responsible for any of these sites or their content. KPMG is obligated to protect its reputation and trademarks and KPMG reserves the right to request [emphasis mine] removal of any link to our website.

Explicit permission is required to use the KPMG logo. To request this written approval, contact the Webmaster or send an e-mail under "Contact Us." The following web link activities are explicitly prohibited by KPMG and may present trademark and copyright infringement issues:

• Links that involve unauthorized use of our logo
• Framing, inline links or metatags
• Hyperlinks or a form of link that disguises the URL and bypass the homepage

It sounds like harassing this guy with lawyers is beyond what they say they'll do.

Silly company.

--Ben

What Tim Berners-Lee has to say about this:

[KjetilK]

We cannot regard anyone as having the "right not to be referred to" without completely pulling the rug out from under free speech.

Frankly, if KPMG doesn't want to be linked to, they should not be on the web.