Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Online Publisher Blocks LinuxToday Referrals

Posted by timothy on from the right-to-free-linkage dept.

MadChicken writes "This weekend, LinuxToday found that their link to an article was blocked by CMP Media LLC (publishers of Information Week). The editorial with full details is here. Could this have impact on other online news sites?"

22 of 346 comments (clear)

  1. Why bother by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What does denying links achieve? The web is great because it is just that. Start blocking links and it will start to fall apart.

  2. Does This Mean.... by ttldkns · · Score: 5, Funny

    No more slashdot effect once evryone realises you can block us?

    --
    How many computers are too many?
    1. Re:Does This Mean.... by gunix · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Can I tell my brower not to tell that I'm following a link when I enter a site?
      Wouldn't that solve the problem?

      --
      Evolution of Language Through The Ages: 6000 BC : ungh, grrf, booga 2000 AD : grep, awk, sed
    2. Re:Does This Mean.... by svanstrom · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I've already set such things up on some sites which might get /.:ed; basically it means that all people surfing to these sites from a page at /. will get a static snapshot of the contents... it's the same contents, just up to 30 minutes old and without it killing the databases etc. =)

      --
      perl -e'print$_{$_} for sort%_=`lynx -dump svanstrom.com/t`'
    3. Re:Does This Mean.... by Simon+(S2) · · Score: 5, Informative

      Can I tell my brower not to tell that I'm following a link when I enter a site?

      yes. that would solve the problem.

      in mozilla you can set the network.http.sendRefererHeader value to 0.

      or just open the link in a new tab.

      --
      I just don't trust anything that bleeds for five days and doesn't die.
    4. Re:Does This Mean.... by sir_cello · · Score: 5, Interesting


      Employing some form of anti-slashdot mechanism is entirely justified: the issue here is that you're legitimately addressing an economic/cost/resource problem (although, your approach is a little weak: you should employ some form of request rate limiting as the slashdot effect can occur from other sources). You have a right to do this.

      However, simply blocking references by origin with no specific justification, especially when that origin is pursing a similar field of operation sounds very anti-trust: i.e. refusal to supply.

    5. Re:Does This Mean.... by svanstrom · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I also use it on some sites to prevent deeplinking, not to mention people linking directly to certain files (images etc)... but I do allow some sites to do deeplinking.

      I do this simply because I want to control what a person has read before visiting certain information, like forcing them to read a warning/explanatory text before viewing statistics about something. Without that explanatory text it might be possible that people are going to misinterpret the data; but I don't have to force them to read my warning if I know that the site doing the deeplinking are good at explaining the data to the reader...

      --
      perl -e'print$_{$_} for sort%_=`lynx -dump svanstrom.com/t`'
  3. Marketing ploy ? by Space+cowboy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The cynic within immediately asks 'who gains ?' from reducing the number of users on your site by denying traffic from what is essentially a free referral service. It doesn't seem to make any sense... If the story was being copied verbatim, and the source-site was losing ad revenue then there's just cause to block the copying site, but in this case Linux Today is only posting excerpts containing links ...

    So, what gain can there be ? Does the process of having an outcry against you, then acquiescing to public demand (becoming a 'good guy' again) give you a sufficiently high profile that it's worth losing some page-views temporarily ? I think that it might....

    Simon the cynic.

    --
    Physicists get Hadrons!
  4. Damn all this traffic! by cheezus · · Score: 5, Funny

    My advertisers certainly won't be happy that all these people are seeing their ad via a link to my hit story. I'd better cut them off, and fast!

    --
    /bin/fortune | slashdotsig.sh
  5. What is going on .... by sygin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Aparently when you click on the link provided by Linux Today you get: "Unfortunately, we cannot satisfy this particular request because it comes from a source that is not authorized to redistribute our content..." This is not redistribution in my opinion. This is how the net works(?).

    --
    Don't make your problems my problems!
  6. Why? by segfault_0 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This kind of silent blocking of a referrer does nothing but hurt the blocking site. If their point was that they dont want their material reproduced on another site, this block doesn't stop that - actually it encourages more if it since the site in question cant link to the original material. They are well within their rights but it doesnt seem like a very good strategy for a company who depends so much on the internet community.

    --

    I was crazy back when being crazy really meant something. (Charles Manson)
    1. Re:Why? by timeOday · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Here's where this really leads. If more sites start doing this, you will see HTTP_REFERRER disappear in a heartbeat. Why should I be generous enough to tell you where I've been, only to be denied access? I can just as easily make my browser tell you I came from somewhere on your site.

  7. Sweet Irony. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    How ironic, they block LinuxToday to keep the traffic down, then they get slashdotted because of it, heh.

  8. Re:Generally most sites welcome incoming traffic by k_head · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Actually it's not deep linking either. Deep linking involves getting the content while avoiding the advertising.

    This is simply a referal. You know what URLs are designed for. What the entire web is designed to do. Provide links from one document to another and all that.

    --
    The best way to support the US war effort is to continue buying American products.
  9. Re:its thier site by MRK · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yeah, but it is

    1. counterproductive, since they're just refusing traffic. AFAIK linuxtoday wasn't publishing a copy (which I could see being argued as theft ... but besides which this tactic wouldn't have worked against either), but posting a link to information week's article

    2. pointless, since the people that are reading these types of articles might have a better idea of how the web works than the publisher apparently does, and realize that by simply copy and pasting the URL into the address bar (or by blocking their browser's reporting of HTTP referer) they can read the article without hitting the useless block.

  10. Solution for mozzy/firebird users by doormat · · Score: 5, Informative

    Edit user.js and add/change

    user_pref("network.http.sendRefererHeader", 0);

    No more referers sent.

    --
    The Doormat

    If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
  11. Mozilla 1.6 bypass instructions. by pherris · · Score: 5, Informative
    1. Open 'about:config'
    2. Set 'network.http.sendRefererHeader' to 0
    3. Enjoy.

    This simply kills off the referer tag from being sent and lets you through. While it's very unlikely this will cause problems, some web sites might not work w/o the tag.

    --
    "And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" - HST
  12. Mozilla needs referrer circumvention! by Hobbex · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The referrer field is, especially when it is used to act against my interest (by blocking access to something), my own browser being hostile toward me. Without the active participation of my _own_ browser, they would not be able to block me from accessing the site. This is on the level of DRM, and ought not be acceptable in the free software world.

    Now, in mozilla you can turn of referrer all together, but that is not good enough, because then they can simpyl start blocking access to deep pages when there is no referrer (this will create problems for instance for emailed links, but I know some sites do it (porn...)).

    So mozilla needs to go further to assist it's users, rather than be party restrictions on them. My software should serve me, and me alone. Here is what it needs:

    - Always set "Referrer" to the root of the host.
    - Always set "Referrer" to one directory above the current page.
    - And, most importantly, support for an html extension where the "a" tag (or any other, now that other things can be links) has a parameter that tells the browser referrer to use. So that Mozilla could be set to respect links like this:

    <a href="http://slashdot.org" referrer="http://www.google.com">

    and then set the HTTP referrer field accordingly. That way the browser would not betraying me my providing the source of my link to the destination site, so that they can use it against me.

  13. Retype or Copy & Paste does that for one-shots by billstewart · · Score: 5, Informative
    Other people posted how to set your browser to do this consistently, but if you don't want to do that, just type the URL that's getting blocked into a new browser window, or copy and paste it if it's too long to retype. That way there's no REFERER associated with it.

    On the other hand, some websites that don't like deep linking will only show you their deeper pages if you DO have a REFERER set from one of their other pages - so you have to go in through the front door. That's one reason you might not want to block REFERER permanently.

    --

    Bill Stewart
    New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
  14. Slander vs. fair use. by fmaxwell · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yes, they can block who they want, but they don't have a right to determine who will have fair use rights. The message that they displayed was "Unfortunately, we cannot satisfy this particular request because it comes from a source that is not authorized to redistribute our content..." That implies that LinuxToday was violating CMP's copyright (because CMP has no legal right to decide who is 'authorized' to make fair-use excerpts. Thus, CMP has slandered LinuxToday.

    On a wider scale, we have seen large corporate entities go to great lengths to prevent fair use. The RIAA and MPAA have redefined fair use and put copy protection into place to prevent fair use copying and backup. Broadcasters will have a "flag" in HDTV broadcasts that tells digital recording devices whether a broadcast can be recorded. Software companies have long fought against fair use. I just bought Unreal Tournament 2004. It uses a form of copy protection and, on top of that, requires that a "Play CD" be in the drive. You can't back up that CD using normal methods and you're hosed if it gets damaged or lost. (There were cracks out the next day, but 99% of people will never know about the cracks.)

    We need laws protecting fair use before large corporations effectively quash it. Should CMP be allowed to "punish" a site for exercising their fair use rights to excerpt? I see both sides of this one, but, given the big picture of corporations deciding to prevent fair use, I have to side with LinuxToday.

  15. Can do this in Opera, too by Feelvoid · · Score: 5, Informative

    In Opera, You can toggle the sending of the Referrer Header at any time.

    Use the quick menu: Just hit F12, then 'f'. (on v6.03 at least)

    I can see lots of uses for this. You can use this to hide where you're coming from, such as clicking on info links from BitTorrent repositories of questionable nature. Or when trying to get through to sites who have blocked access via Referrer from Slashdot.

    From the online docs:

    "
    Disabling referrer logging

    Do you want Opera to send information referring to the page from where the document or picture was requested?

    If you enable this option in File > Preferences > Privacy, Web servers can store information about the site that you last visited before you jumped to the current one. This allows webmasters to analyze how people find their way to his website.

    Disable this option if..."
    [Remainder of text deleted to fit within fair-use guidelines. Ahem.]

    It would wreak havoc on the spirit of the internet to have user-definable Referrer fields, though...

    -j.

  16. Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. by dunhamrc · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I went to the articel url posted in the comments here, and at the bottom of the page I noticed a link saying "Licence this Article". Clicking it provides a pop-up window which lets me get a "Quick Price" (SM?) on how much I should pay for re-distributing the article. If I want to link to the article from my corporate or academic website, the cost is $2.50. If I want to email a link to the article to one friend, the price is $5.00. This despite the fact that there's a link at the top of the article which apparently lets you email it for free. This service is provided to CMP Publishing by an outfit calling itself the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. They are at www.copyright.com. *Sigh*