New Orbitz Terms Prohibit Inbound Deep Linking

chekovma writes "Orbitz has announced a new set of Terms and Conditions that take effect March 12th which require anyone who uses their website (creates an account there) to follow strict inbound linking rules. These rules prohibit a user from creating even a plain text link to orbitz.com without first notifying them and require a user to take down such a link at their desire. It also disallows any deep linking -- meaning even this post violates those terms and conditions."

Comments

Good Morning Slashdot!

[Ads are broken]

I just wanted to tell you how much I love you! Have a great day!

Hmmm

[gowen]

Orbitz has silly new rules for users.

So don't use them.

Duh.

Re:Hmmm

[ghoti]

Why would you want to deep-link into their site anyway?

Re:Hmmm

[JaffaKREE]

The only time I have ever been to an orbitz site was when visiting ESPN.com (quite possibly the most crap-laden major site on the internet - you have to download 3 megs to get to the 4k story) using IE. I know them as nothing more than pop-ups.

Re:Hmmm

[jamesoutlaw]

Here are a couple of examples of why someone would want to deep link:
A competitor may want to deep link in order to directly compare rates for flights... similar to what Progressive does with car insurance. Or, some unaffiliated company (like a travel agency) may want to build their own travel web portal and simply use the Orbitz site to show/reserve flight information without Orbitz's permission.

Re:Hmmm

[Skye16]

Those are two instances which are clearly not in the best interests of Orbitz. However, what about more mundane uses? Perhaps I want to help a friend find the best price for their trip? Technically, I won't be able to directly link them to the results I've found. Instead, I'd have to walk them through exactly what search/browse/filter criteria to use and hope that their result set is no different than mine.

Perhaps Orbitz should be allowed to do this. After all, it is their site. At the same time, however, consumers should voice their annoyance at being so inconvenienced. Just a quick email to their customer service department telling them "I'd love to use your site to find the best travel information I can, however, I find the TOS too restrictive for my needs and will be using Travelocity instead. I felt it important to inform you of this loss of business in the hopes that you will one day revise your TOS to allow deep linking for personal use."

</ramble%gt;

Re:Hmmm

[HeghmoH]

Here's my opinion:

First, Orbitz should be allowed to do whatever they want. This includes prohibiting deep linking.

Second, Orbitz should not be allowed to legally enforce anything that doesn't have a signed contract behind it.

These two combine to form what I think is the correct set of possibilities. Orbitz can yell and scream as much as they like. If they really want to, they can even implement technical restrictions. It's almost trivial to prevent deep linking with a technical solution; embed a unique, expiring identifier into every URL. If you want to get really draconian, tie it to the incoming IP address, or a cookie, etc. Problem solved. What they cannot do is allow deep linking on a technical level but then sue people for doing it.

I believe that disallowing people from sending a correct request to your web server and retrieving a correct response is utterly bogus and the law should come down on the side of the requester.

However, I don't know how the law actually is, I just think that's how it should be.

Re:Hmmm

[Alakaboo]

Or even easier, a cookie, or a referer check.

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

First, Orbitz should be allowed to do whatever they want.

Would you argue that Orbitz should be allowed to require the user to download and install an Orbitz Agent, which not only allows them to access the site, but also sends "useful consumer information" to Orbitz?

Re:Hmmm

[csjavi]

Browsers can be configured not to send referer info.

Re:Hmmm

[bkazez]

Well...referrers aren't completely reliable, and keeping the expirable identifier unique to each user means using cookies anyway.

Re:Hmmm

[gr8_phk]

Let's just say they should use technical means to enforce this policy. I agree that users should be able to request a request to a public web server to get information. I also believe they should not be able to use laws to prohibit publication of "deep links". I also think any site that wants to disallow this should just use a technical means to prevent people from doing this. How? If a joint the size of Orbitz can't figure it out I'd be glad to sell them a solution - um right after I patent it.

Re:Hmmm

[Sporkinum]

Their pop-up/under ads are exactly why I have never been to their web site nor will ever use it. Even their TV commercials were annoying. I guess this latest "policy" sounds like business as usual.

Re:Hmmm

[HeghmoH]

Certainly! Most MMORPGs do this already, just to name one example. Of course, they will promptly lose 95% of their customers because nobody wants to install some unweildy custom application just to book airline tickets, but they'd be well within their rights to require such a monstrosity.

Re:Hmmm

[jimoc]

Alternatively send this to corpcom@orbitz.com

Sirs,
I refer to the text of your Terms and Conditions as attached below.
My question to you is how do you intend to enforce these conditions since,

1. To read them someone must go to your site and find them.
2. You cannot dictate what any internet user puts on their own website, this is called the right to free speech and is embodied in almost every constitution in the world, even if some countries seem determined to undermine it with legislation.
and

3. A simple search on Google using the words Orbitz and Terms comes up with deep links to your own site. Do you now intend to ask google to remove all those links therefore rendering your website unreachable by the majority of internet users.

Would it not be simpler for your web administrator to implement code changes to restrict access to only your home page based on the referrer value rather then trying a legalise approach which has no possibility of succeeding and will in fact only mean that you will lose customers.

I look forward to hearing your reply.

(Your name here)

Relavent T&C section :

Inbound Links

We welcome links from a third party site to the home page of our Site, through a plain text link, provided that (a) you give Orbitz prior written notice of such link by contacting Orbitz Customer Service, to request Orbitz's permission to establish the link; (b) you discontinue providing a link to our Site if so requested by Orbitz; (c) you do not imply in any fashion that Orbitz is endorsing any of your products or service or is affiliated with you, (d) you do not present Orbitz in a false light, or provide misleading or false information about Orbitz, or its Site or Services, (e) you do not remove or obscure the copyright notices, or other notices on this Site; (f) you do not use any Mark of Orbitz; and (g) you do not replicate, frame or mirror the content of the Site. We reserve the right to require you to remove links to the Site, in our sole discretion. Linking to any page of the Site other than to the homepage is strictly prohibited in the absence of a separate linking agreement with Orbitz.

Re:Hmmm

[HeghmoH]

I doubt you'd be able to patent it, there's too much prior art.

Just one example, poke around the Apple Store for a bit. Find something cool. Try to send the link to a friend. It won't work for them.

This kind of thing is trivial for a database-backed web site, which both the Apple Store and Orbitz undoubtedly are. They're either being lazy or stupid, or the web monkeys are revolting against management by implementing their ideas in a stupid way.

Re:Hmmm

[nxtr]

Could it be because they might have some security vulerability that might get exposed if a person clicks a deep link and their tech people might be too damn lazy to fix it? Someone might send a friend a link to cheap tickets but when that friend click it, out comes a customer information list with credit card information and all.

Re:Hmmm

[darien]

2. You cannot dictate what any internet user puts on their own website

Try putting the text of the latest John Grisham novel on your site and see what happens.

Re:Hmmm

[donely]

I simply don't understand why any firm would stoop to this? I mean, the problem could disappear if they just checked the referer to the site and if refering page does not equal *orbitz.com*, then take them to the front page. Problem solved, without being publicly critized as here on slashdot for being "a bad guy".

Re:Hmmm

[cluckshot]

I find it objectionable that somebody would place data in the public domain like on the net and then expect that they can actually hope to control it. My objection comes from my gut reaction to IDIOTS.

Re:Hmmm

[stutterbug]

Seriously, if they are so opposed to deep linking, why don't they change their site so the entire page is run off their index page and manage all navigation with form POST arguments rather than GETs. Putting up a rule that people are going to bypass anyways is idiotic and then punishing them is only going to garner you bad press. The solution is technological. You'd think an Interweb company like this would get it, but... never mind.

Re:Hmmm

[shark72]

"Those are two instances which are clearly not in the best interests of Orbitz. However, what about more mundane uses? Perhaps I want to help a friend find the best price for their trip? Technically, I won't be able to directly link them to the results I've found. Instead, I'd have to walk them through exactly what search/browse/filter criteria to use and hope that their result set is no different than mine."

No, you wouldn't -- just e-mail your friend the link and don't worry about it.

It seems clear to me that Orbitz put this into place so that they have the grounds to go after others that are putting permanent deep links on their web sites. They're going after the aforementioned competitors, et al., and not you.

"Perhaps Orbitz should be allowed to do this. After all, it is their site. At the same time, however, consumers should voice their annoyance at being so inconvenienced. Just a quick email to their customer service department telling them "I'd love to use your site to find the best travel information I can, however, I find the TOS too restrictive for my needs and will be using Travelocity instead. I felt it important to inform you of this loss of business in the hopes that you will one day revise your TOS to allow deep linking for personal use.""

I'm not sure what the point of this would be, other than to get attention. If you want to send a link to a friend, do it. Their TOS hasn't been written for the purposes of what you're doing. No need to be a martyr.

In case I'm not being clear, here's a similar example. I run a web site which has a TOS that states that we have the right to bounce accounts for excessive profanity and various other naughty things. Now, this does not mean that we're running a profanity filter and proactively bouncing anybody who utters the random "fuck." The TOS is in place so that we have a clearly defined right to bounce people who are being obnoxious. If somebody were to send me an e-mail similar to yours -- "I would like to use your site but since you won't let me use profanity I'll go somewhere else instead" -- I would rightfully point out that they were being a moron.

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope you realise that you just violated the TOS by posting that extract...

Re:Hmmm

[Garve]

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&lr=&q=+site:w ww.orbitz.com+orbitz/

It appears Google has broken their terms and conditions 130,000 times - perhaps someone should inform them.

Re:Hmmm

[iamwahoo2]

Okay, but legally how are they allowed to prevent a third party from linking to anything they put on the web? It even says in the terms and conditions that I am supposed to ask there permission to link to their main website. Correct me if I am wrong, but I do not think anyone can tell me what to link to or not to link to from my website.

http://www.orbitz.com/

Oh damn, did I just break the law?

http://www.orbitz.com/ http://www.orbitz.com/ http://www.orbitz.com/ http://www.orbitz.com/

Holy shites!! It's out of control!

http://www.orbitz.com/ http://www.orbitz.com/

Re:Hmmm

[Jedi Alec]

2. You cannot dictate what any internet user puts on their own website

Try putting the text of the latest John Grisham novel on your site and see what happens.

Does that change Orbitz' ability to dictate? Unless they just became a lawfirm...

Re:Hmmm

[Easybake]

> First, Orbitz should be allowed to do whatever they want. This includes prohibiting deep linking.

This would be like joining a poker game, then requiring that the dealer ask your permission every time she deals you a card.

Re:Hmmm

[iamwahoo2]

Actually, It does not matter if you sign the agreement because there is no exchange of value. If there is no exchange of value, a contract is not legally binding. The problem is that Orbitz wants to have their cake and eat it too. Too Bad for them!

Re:Hmmm

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Those are two instances which are clearly not in the best interests of Orbitz.

Who cares if it's in their interests or not? So long as it isn't deceptive, they should get no legal protection.

Perhaps Orbitz should be allowed to do this. After all, it is their site.

The problem is that it isn't. They seek to constrain the actions of others on their respective sites. Let them try to foil deep links, give them no legal clout to enforce it.

Re:Hmmm

[HeghmoH]

And you can do this. However, the dealer may not agree, in which case your only recourse is to suck it up or leave the game. This is exactly what Orbitz's choices should be: either let people deep link despite their non-binding request not to, or actively prevent people from doing so in a technological (not legal) manner.

Re:Hmmm

[iamwahoo2]

He was making a joke of the current state of software patents.

Re:Hmmm

[Skye16]

I'm not sure what the point of this would be, other than to get attention.

The point would be to say "Hello, I am a consumer, and while you are a large corporation, you still have to meet my criteria if you wish me to purchase itemX through you."

Of course, Orbitz is under no obligation to listen, but they may find, if this does become an issue, that they will change their TOS. It's not as if it would be a bad business decision from their stand point, and it may garner them a few more customers. That's the power of the consumer, right there. Contrary to popular belief, the consumer DOES have a say in the business world; it's their wallet, after all. Not using Orbitz is fine, but they could chalk this loss in business up to other, non related things. Writing an email informing them of your decision not to spend money at their website is just ensuring that they know why revenue is down.

Of course, it is true that this one little act is of such minor importance that Orbitz is most likely to just ignore it, but maybe, just maybe, it WILL catch their attention and things will change. I know I still hold doors open for people when entering or leaving a restaurant, even knowing that that one small act of kindness does relatively little in making the world a better place, overall. It takes little effort and, who knows, it's quite possible that it does have some effect after all.

Also, to go back to your example of profanity on a web site; it is well within your rights to completely ignore, or derogatively reply to any email sent to you concerning your decisions in running your site. But, for instance, what if your site's ToS said something like "You shall not use the letter p on Tuesdays or Thursdays until after tea." It's a pretty silly statement, yes, and I seriously doubt it is going to harm the existence of your website. Knowing that it is a ridiculous rule, you would be more inclined to listen to complaints concerning it than, say, you would about profanity (or that Orbitz would be if, say, they got 100,000 emails for people wanting free tickets to Hawaii). In the latter two situations (profanity and free air fare), you are both completely justified in saying "you're all fucking idiots, 'stfukthxbai'", because it has a serious adverse effect on your business (or organization). In the former two situations (not deep-linking-for-personal-use and using the letter p), there are (in all probability) no adverse effects, and as such, you would be MUCH more inclined to modify your ToS.

Re:Hmmm

[Sirch]

3. A simple search on Google using the words Orbitz and Terms comes up with deep links to your own site. Do you now intend to ask google to remove all those links therefore rendering your website unreachable by the majority of internet users.

This is what robots.txt is for - to inform Google and other search engines to not index certain pages. Once Orbitz sets these files up properly, Google will stop indexing the pages and the information will fall off of its records and results.

Re:Hmmm

[Magic5Ball]

2. You cannot dictate what any internet user puts on their own website, this is called the right to free speech and is embodied in almost every constitution in the world, even if some countries seem determined to undermine it with legislation.

Sadly, even if most constitutions protect free speech, most of the world's population cannot excercise it. If you look at population by country breakdown, only 7-8 of the top 25 countries have free speech as we know it in Anglo North America. It's closer to population pairity between free speech and not free speech when you consider the total populations of massively Internet-enabled countries, but still not great.

Re:Hmmm

[LordNimon]

Then those browsers will fail in some way. No browser has that set as a default, and it's only geeks like us that even know about the "referer" header and how it works.

Besides, any deep link can be redirected to the home page. A lot of sites already do this. Orbitz is just plain stupid for making this a legal restriction. They could have made it a technical restriction, and no one would even have noticed, let alone complained.

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

If Orbitz or whatever the choose to call themselfs choose to prevent people linking to there site ( aftrer all thats is ultimatley what they are after is it not bit of the old microSlops about them i think) then it stands to reason that they should REMOVE all links on there site to other sites they cant have the cake and eat it as well (unless they are of course tied to microSlops that is .
)

The ultimate weapon is dont use them when they suffer in the bank department they will come crawling back all sheepish like

pete .

Re:Hmmm

[cyber0ne]

Would you argue that Orbitz should be allowed to require the user to download and install an Orbitz Agent, which not only allows them to access the site, but also sends "useful consumer information" to Orbitz?

Sure. They're also allowed to put a credit card form on every page of their website and require users to pay $100 every time they click a link.

I imagine your example wouldn't hurt their userbase quite so much as mine (though it would definitely hurt it), but they're certainly allowed to do either of them.

Re:Hmmm

[ratboy666]

There are laws about "unauthorized" use of computer resources. Cite 18 U.S.C. 1030.

And that's what US Federal Law actually is. I agree with you -- US law /is/ overboard here.

Deep linking can run afoul of those laws.

So, oblige them, and DON'T DO IT. Indeed, remove all links. Link to other travel sites instead.

Just a suggestion.

Re:Hmmm

[AviLazar]

Second, Orbitz should not be allowed to legally enforce anything that doesn't have a signed contract behind it.

The law tries to be reasonable (doesn't always happen, but it tries). Requiring every man, woman and child on this planet to sign a contract on the happenstance that they will utilize Orbitz is kind of unreasonable....they have a terms of service on their site. You can (and maybe should, gasp) read it prior to perusing their site and using their services. If you fail to read, that is your fault, not theirs.

Now if this rule that they made is applied to competitors, as someone else posted, that is cool - but to prevent people to just link to your site without written permission is just lame. I sometimes send deeplinks to my mom when I find good prices...Well I have on one of my personal sites an area where someone can link to Orbitz (I like Orbitz prices) - so if Orbitz wants me to remove the link they can write me a letter, certified, notarized and pay a $10 maintenance fee :D

Re:Hmmm

[AviLazar]

And it is their choice to use a tech manner or legal manner. While we would prefer a tech way of doing things - it is their site, their option.

Re:Hmmm

[AviLazar]

Here Ya Go

Here Ya go 2

Here Ya go 3

So where is the basis for your statement?

Re:Hmmm

[myowntrueself]

I thought that the only time that 'prior art' matters with respect to patents is when someone spends $40,000 (or some other sky-high figure) to lodge a request for a review at the patent office?

Other than that, prior art seems pretty useless as a way to stop something being patented in the first place.

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

These terms could be put in place due to Google's recent algorithm changes that are penalizing sites that receive too many inbound links. It sucks that a site can be penalized based on who links to it, but this is now the case with Google.

Re:Hmmm

[cayenne8]

I have a problem with all this 'what you can look at on my website business'.

I liken a website to a public street, you have no real expectation privacy on the street, I don't think you should have much in the way of such on the web. The website is a public offering.

If I sat on the street, played guitar, I could not tell people passing by not to tell anyone about me, nor should they hum any tunes they heard me play.

Likewise with a website. If you don't want everyone to access it...don't put it out there.

They certainly shouldn't be able to sue you for nothing else but deep linking.

Re:Hmmm

[cayenne8]

"So, oblige them, and DON'T DO IT. Indeed, remove all links. Link to other travel sites instead."

Ok...instead of a direct deep link...would it be legal to get data from their website...reprocess, and put it up on yours? That way, nothing but 'facts' are on your website based upon what they put on their site?

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Their site, their business model last time I looked the bill of rights etc only applied to the government not private business. Ohio recently passed a CCW law, well some shops place signs that makes it against store policy to enter with said concealed weapon. If a B&M store has a sign up saying take your shoes off before entering well if you want something from there guess what the shoes come off. Or place this tracking tag on you while your in the store so we can track what aisle your in.

Bitching and moaning about it on a site does nothing, but that seems to be what goes on with most slash threads. Bitching and moaning when something pops up and guess what nothing gets done or changed from here.

Re:Hmmm

[tartley]

>> First, Orbitz should be allowed to do whatever they want. This includes prohibiting deep linking.

Problem is, that's not Orbitz doing what they want, that's Orbitz telling me what I can and cannot do with my own keyboard! The important thing here is they think that THEY get to define what is acceptable content in MY emails and webpages. Not a chance!

Re:Hmmm

[LifesABeach]

I'm just thinking from a business point of view. If future clients can't be told of orbiz. Then future clients won't use their service. The number one cause of all business failures is that the customer doesn't know the service, is not allowed access to the service for one reason or another.

What I find VERY irritating is that 'Orbitz' water systems have been around longer than the travel company of the same name. And I got to Google to find the company I REALLY want to do business with.

Re:Hmmm

[ray-auch]

And servers can be configured to redirect requests without referrer info. A site can require referrer info just the same as requiring cookies.

Referrer can be easily spoofed too - but the vast majority of users aren't going to have the skill or the desire to do it.

Re:Hmmm

[cyberformer]

Orbitz's popup ads always struck me as completely insane. It's understandable (albeit annoying) that media companies might want to use popups, but Orbitz is supposed to be an e-commerce site. People who go there are already looking to spend money with Orbitz. The first time I saw one, I assumed I'd been infected with spyware. (This was back when i used IE). But no: Orbitz really is that stupid.

The craziness doesnt' end there. Orbitz also makes people register and sign up for spam simply to use the site. That just drives customers away. Sensible e-commerce sites don't ask you to register until after they've got your money.

Re:Hmmm

[zcat_NZ]

Browsers can be configured not to send referer info.

But they usually aren't, and it's completely outside the control of a website designer. Just checking through my logs, about 2% of visitors to my page have their referer blocked. A little php script that bounced 'outside referers' back to the homepage would make deep links break for 98% of the people that try to follow them. No silly ToS required.

Re:Hmmm

[Schreckgestalt]

Telling from these results, mainly gay people use Orbitz anyway.

Re:Hmmm

[d34thm0nk3y]

Please, lets keep in mind that these new restrictions are in the TOS. So they are conditions of use. E.g. if they catch you deep linking they can revoke you membership. Thats it. I have yet to hear of a case where damages were awarded for breaking a TOS.

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Either A) you don't understand what public domain means, or B) you want a world in which any information available online actually is in the public domain, which would result in very little information being put online.

Re:Hmmm

[ephraim]

> First, Orbitz should be allowed to do whatever they want. This includes prohibiting deep linking.

Wrong. You can't put "whatever you want" into a contract. See Henningsen v. Bloomfield Motors. (The summary in that link is not so great, but it should give you the basic idea.) Many issues come into play here: notice, unconscionability, duress, etc.

> Second, Orbitz should not be allowed to legally enforce anything that doesn't have a signed contract behind it. Wrong again. The general rule is that contracts do *not* need to be signed. For that matter, most contracts need not even be in writing. While I think the clause is ridiculous and possibly unenforceable, you're not going to get anywhere by making bogus legal arguments. /ephraim

Re:Hmmm

[andreMA]

I find it objectionable that somebody would place data in the public domain like on the net and then expect that they can actually hope to control it. My objection comes from my gut reaction to IDIOTS.

Yep, they're idiots. The even used a routable IP address for what they seem to consider their intranet!

Re:Hmmm

[HeghmoH]

I don't see where you get off saying that I'm "wrong" and that I'm making "bogus legal arguments" when I state very clearly in my post that I'm just talking about how I think things should work, and not how they actually do work. It's good to both read and comprehend the entirety of a post before you respond to it with crap.

Re:Hmmm

[yfarren]

in consideration for USING OUR SITE, you agree... how is that not Consideration? It doesnt have to be much, to be binding. You get something, the use of our site, we get something. No linking. Sounds legit to me...(IANAL)

Re:Hmmm

[iamwahoo2]

Those links are all generally about EULA's, which is quite different, although I tend to feel that the shrink wrapped licenses are wrong, there are judges that feel both ways about it. Orbitz has put information on the web without making it private in any way. They could lock it off like a banking website does. I think any reasonably minded person would find that once you publish something on the internet it is fair game to read/use without restriction so long as copyright is not violated. Otherwise we risk having hidden contracts within every website we visit. That would completely screw up the internet. If I am forced to go through a license before I get something, ie. downloading java sdk from SUN, then that makes sense. But by putting a link to terms and conditions at the bottom of a website, you are not giving me value that I did not already have. The conditions of contracts that we consider legally binding in this country is out of control. You should not be bound to a contract if you were never aware that there was one in the first place.

Re:Hmmm

[ephraim]

OK, just for sake of argument let's say that there are three frames of reference (perspectives) for reality:

1. The way that Orbitz would like to interpret US contract law for their Terms and Conditions.

2. The way that you would like to interpret US contract law for Orbitz's Terms and Conditions.

3. Your view of how Orbitz's Terms and conditions should be interpreted in a Perfect World (TM) regardless of US law or any other law.

It was quite clear from your posting that you were not looking at reality from perspective #1, and in fact your were trying to disagree with it. I read your comment about "I don't know how the law actually is, I just think that's how it should be" to mean that you didn't know much about the law on these issues, but thought it should turn out the way you described in perspective #2. So, I responded in kind, assuming that you were trying to described something with a basis in "our" reality.

Obviously, I misunderstood what you meant, and you were describing a "perfect world" scenario. Unfortunately, I can't agree with that either.

> First, Orbitz should be allowed to do whatever they want. This includes prohibiting deep linking.

Orbitz's right to do "whatever they want" stops at my right to do "whatever I want." In the real world, *nobody* can do "whatever they want." because something -- law, morality, religion -- needs to define that boundary between me and you so that it's clear for all of us who want to play on fair ground.

You might respond that Orbitz can do whatever it wants as long it doesn't affect me directly, but that's almost impossible unless Orbitz lives in a world by itself. Another counter-example: Let's say Orbitz has an online contract which is in English except that the last line saying "you hereby agree to give Orbitz your first born child" is written in Arabic. Since I can't read Arabic, I click (or sign) my agreement, thinking that the Arabic words were just a pretty squiggly line. Should this be enforceable? You *did* sign the agreement and nobody forced you to. If you agree that the contract is unenforceable, then Orbitz *cannot* do whatever it wants.

On to your next claim:

> Second, Orbitz should not be allowed to legally enforce anything that doesn't have a signed contract behind it.

I will assume that your proposition is that contracts may never be enforceable unless in writing and signed. Again, I disagree. This would make commerce impossibly difficult. Imagine: Some kid comes to your front door and offers to shovel your driveway. After 5 minutes of bargaining, you verbally agree on paying him $50 for his work. He performs the work, and asks you for your money. Do you now have the right to tell him to get lost because he didn't ask for it in writing? Should the law be able to back him up, or should you be able to legally refuse payment? /ephraim

Re:Hmmm

[AviLazar]

The law agrees with you, (i.e. clickable contracts). If you did not know there was a contract because it was buried and to access the contract you need to find it then - no it is not enforceable. But if they make the contract the first thing you get before the site, or they put some disclaimer 'read the contract, because deep linking is not allowed per our TOA' then you need to obey the contract before proceeding. You have been warned...

Now it will be neat how this affects things like google web crawl.

Re:Hmmm

[Kevin Mitnick]

No referrer info? off to the homepage you get booted...

Re:Hmmm

[SpecBear]

Read the Orbitz TOS. In your case, you aren't strictly barring the use of profanity. From the Orbitz TOS:

"Linking to any page of the Site other than to the homepage is strictly prohibited in the absence of a separate linking agreement with Orbitz."

That's not "excessive linking" or "linking for commercial purposes". This is linking to any page besides the home page by anyone. And it's not that deep linking is "discouraged" or "frowned upon" or "tolerated only in moderation." It's "strictly prohibited."

We can only guess as to what Orbitz's intent is with this clause. But the reality is, can be applied to everyone, not just competitors. So today maybe it's just there to prevent hotlinking from competitors' sites, but it can be used against anyone should they choose to. What happens if I criticize Orbitz in my blog? Can they silence be because it's against the TOS?

Re:Hmmm

[Stephen Samuel]

I think that what they want to prevent is people who do automatic comparisons of the results at Orbitz and other sites. (they may be embarassed at the results). The result of what they're asking for appears to be preventing any linking to their site other tha saying 'this company exists, and this is what they do'.
If this gets enforced, chances are that they'll all but disappear off of google within a year os so (other than google ads, which now can't present ads based on queries to other similar sites).

I.e.: If this works as advertised, they're toast.

Re:Hmmm

[StateOfTheUnion]

Actually no . . . many contracts are written "For consideration received . . . "

This indicates an exchange of value even if no money has changed hands. This is done in photography for model releases (permission to publish a model's likeness) all the time. An acknowledgement of consideration received is all that is necessary . . . in photography the opportunity to model or to have a photographer attempt of even consider publication of a photo of a person can be construed as "consideration received." as defined in a model release form.

Additionally, the service of providing listings of flights for possible purchase is easily arguable as "consideration" that would make the Orbitz agreement legally binding.

Re:Hmmm

[joeljkp]

Lots of people sending the exact same letter is a good way for the whole lot to be ignored.

Re:Hmmm

[joeljkp]

" Okay, but legally how are they allowed to prevent a third party from linking to anything they put on the web?"

They can't. Those terms are for people who want to use their site. If you break their terms, they can delete your account or whatever.

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll deep link to them whenever it suits my purpose!

Re:Hmmm

[IKnwThePiecesFt]

Deep linking the apple store works for me...

Re:Hmmm

[ebyrob]

And it is their choice to use a tech manner or legal manner. While we would prefer a tech way of doing things - it is their site, their option.

Yes, but it is our law and our internet. What the law protects is not up to them.

Re:Hmmm

[JAFSlashdotter]

I think I disagree with your analogy. Your TOS tells people what they can and can't put up on your webiste, or you may cancel their account. Good for you. That's your site, you reserve the right to get rid of people posting junk on it. Their TOS tells people what they can or can't do on their own websites, and in communications to third parties, involving sharing URLs. That's entirely different.

It doesn't really matter anyway, I've never found any good deals on their site anyway.

Re:Hmmm

[SavvyPlayer]

Perhaps I want to help a friend find the best price for their trip? Technically, I won't be able to directly link them to the results I've found. Instead, I'd have to walk them through exactly what search/browse/filter criteria to use and hope that their result set is no different than mine.

Civil law (US) requires a plaintiff deliver a cease-and-desist letter to any entity against which it plans to take legal action. So let's say, hypothetically of course, you email a deep-link to assist said friend in finding a particular flight. Should this trigger any kind of alarm within Orbitz' violations-reporting software, Orbitz would be required to subpeona your friend's ISP (unlikely as a subpeona requires a court-order, which no court would grant under these circumstances) for her contact information, compose and deliver a cease-and-desist letter via certified-mail, then wait for said friend to violate the cease-and-desist request. At which point Orbitz would be required to subpeona your friend to provide any evidence related to this violation (including private email correspondence) implicating you the author of the link in question -- the actual member and violator of TOS, and repeat this process a number of times until it has sufficient evidence that you had repeatedly violated TOS, ignoring its cease-and-desist request. Then file a lawsuit. The very act of authoring a cease-and-desist letter tailored to individual offenses of this sort would be cost-prohibitive relative to any lost advertising revenue.

In summary, these TOS alone are not restrictive to private individual communication in any pragmatic sense.

Re:Hmmm

[AviLazar]

thats kind of cute "our law" "our internet". But in legal forums - if their terms of service does not break any laws then it is legally binding. While the Internet maybe "ours" - their specific website and their bandwidth is most certainly theirs. If you don't buy that argument - then you can never make the argument that spyware writers should have to pay you (assuming they get caught and prosecuted) for wasting your bandwidth - something that many /.'ers have claimed.

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

They wont have to legally enforce the laws. They can use blackmail/extortion that big-pocketed companies typically use. They force you to settle out of court for $X or sue you (where it costs you $X*N to defend yourself) so "justice" can prevail.

Re:Hmmm

[42forty-two42]

How am I using their system by creating a deep link?

Is it using their system to type, say, "http://orbitz.com/some/deep/link/thats/slashdotte d"?

How about:
"a href=" ?

Putting them together probably wouldn't involve any interaction with their system either. So I fail to see how there is any unauthorized "use" of computer resources.

Re:Hmmm

[cluckshot]

If I place a webpage out where any party may browse to it and obtain information without a special password or other control mechanism on it to prevent actual casual access to it I have placed it in the "Public Domain." Point A noted yes I do understand public domain. The problem here is that these guys didn't understand it. This is just like a person placing a statement in the open and complaining that someone heard it.

I have been developing for people who want to have something secured on line. Well I must admit that it is a considerable chore. But I knew that if I placed information out where a browser could pick it up, it would be picked up. Again only an idiot or an ignorant fool in today's world would assume that placing an open website without proper lockup of data that said data would not be used any way a browsing machine or person wanted. Robots exist. Get with the program. I could see that if a person were to break the security mechanisms and get the data they would be stealing or misusing the data. But if these people expect to make a quote on line to any party without proper mechanisms to prevent it from being picked up and used they may as well forget it.

Just for the record there are long recognized legal precidents that conclude that any party who publishes data openly is subject to it being seen. Attempting to rewrite these Common Law protections into the Copyright Law is ignorant. Attempting to enforce a copyright on something you placed into the public domain is unlikely to survive.

Objecting to my using a robot to compare prices isn't likely to work either. If you published your price, well it is not exactly a secret. This is the problem with internet businesses. They made their living because of the extremely low overhead associated with their market in undercutting the traditional businesses such as travel agents. Now that these agents are gone, they find themselves cutting each other up. There is nobody else left. (Happy fight guys you started it!) They attempt to live by denying the ability of determining competing prices in a market they created based upon such. It will not work. Even if they are successful in fighting 3rd party use, they will fail due to easy comparison. They need to get another business model.

The problem of no information on line didn't appear when net rights were losely enforced. This doesn't seem to be a problem for anyone who understands that the net is open! It only seems to be a problem for those who want to own the net.

Re:Hmmm

[ebyrob]

But in legal forums - if their terms of service does not break any laws then it is legally binding.

Ya, we need to get a better handle on "our law" don't we? Of course when you say "legally binding" does that mean they can suspend my account for breaking TOS or that they can sue me for breach of contract for breaking TOS? The latter seems pretty one-sided considering I'm the only one who made any promises.

If you don't buy that argument - then you can never make the argument that spyware writers should have to pay you (assuming they get caught and prosecuted) for wasting your bandwidth - something that many /.'ers have claimed.

Um... Red Herring? Besides, malware is like toilet papering someone's house, you shouldn't need contract law to know it's more or less wrong. I know I don't have a sign up saying "Please don't throw a bag of doodie on my porch" but I'd still expect someone to get in trouble if I caught em at it.

their specific website and their bandwidth is most certainly theirs.

At what point does the sidewalk outside become the property inside?

Also, if you have a big "open house" sign up, with a bunch of small print saying what folks can and can't do you certainly have the right to kick people out who don't follow your rules (actually, only if it doesn't break laws as you say) but can you also sue them?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not in favor of stripping someone's content, I think that's wrong no matter how it is done and with or without a TOS about it. I just get a bit impatient with all this lawyerly binding contract nonsense. Contracts serve a specific purpose, and it isn't to undergird civilized behavior.

Re:Hmmm

[AviLazar]

they can suspend my account for breaking TOS or that they can sue me for breach of contract for breaking TOS? The latter seems pretty one-sided considering I'm the only one who made any promises.

Nobody said a contract has to be fair, it just has to be legal. If you agree to a crappy deal that is your fault. Besides, they make a few promises of their own and as long as you follow the rules (which are generally fair) you are ok.

but I'd still expect someone to get in trouble if I caught em at it.

And without a specific law for it, you are going to have a hard time getting them in trouble.

At what point does the sidewalk outside become the property inside?

Do you own a home? Did you know, if someone slipped on the sidewalk in front of your home they can sue you and win. It is your responsibility to maintain its cleanliness (i.e. snow) even though you do not own it.

Also, if you have a big "open house" sign up, with a bunch of small print saying what folks can and can't do you certainly have the right to kick people out who don't follow your rules (actually, only if it doesn't break laws as you say) but can you also sue them?

If your visitors can easily tell there is some contract listed (i.e. big letters reading Terms of Service) the rest of it can be microprint, as long as the readers can access it within reason (i.e. you provide the microscope). The only important aspect is that your visitors know it is there - if they choose to ignore it, then that is their fault. And if the terms of service allow for lawsuits then you can.

But there is also reasonable actions people can expect to take. Must I really post a big sign on my website "Do not steal my custom graphics or you will be sued"? A bit of common sense tells you that the graphics were created by someone else, and that you should at least ask for permission before redistributing. I guess I fall back to my previous statements (in other posts) "everything in moderation" :)

Re:Hmmm

[ebyrob]

Do you own a home? Did you know, if someone slipped on the sidewalk in front of your home they can sue you and win. It is your responsibility to maintain its cleanliness (i.e. snow) even though you do not own it.

This just brings me back to: We need to get a better handle on "our laws". (ie: I could see being sued because I put bear-traps on my sidewalk, or even left sand out after working on some project, but not for being out of town when it snows.)

Must I really post a big sign on my website "Do not steal my custom graphics or you will be sued"? A bit of common sense tells you that the graphics were created by someone else, and that you should at least ask for permission before redistributing.

You shouldn't have to put up a "do not copy sign" any more than I should have to put up a "do not doody" sign.

In the case of doody we have vandalism laws, in the case of obsessive deep-linking we have copyright laws. If both are doing their jobs the contracts should be:
A) un-necessary.
B) largely pointless, since most terms either don't apply or are already covered

Free advert

[jolyonr]

Ok, they have some unenforcable legal nonsense in their terms & conditions, but does that justify giving them a free advert on slashdot?

Re:Free advert

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you mean, unenforcable? If you enter into a contract with them, they can require you to refrain from deep linking and you're legally bound by that. People who are not their users however are not bound by their conditions and can keep linking.

Re:Free advert

[jolyonr]

Well, that's exactly the point. The people who would be 'members' are people who book flights, not people who run the sites that link to Orbitz (of course, such a person could also be a 'member' too, but they don't need to be), which is why it's pointless. All it's there for is to try to control what their affiliates do with linking to the site, that's all. If I wanted to deep link I'm free to, as I'm not a member of the site, here you go, just for an example - I'm perfectly free to do this. Companies try this sort of things in terms & conditions all the time, not to stop deep linking completely, but because lawyers love to feel they are in control of everything 'just in case'. Jolyon

Re:Free advert

[quandrum]

Well, someone needs to advertise for them, because they are about to fall of all search engines. Google, who needs 'em?

Re:Free advert

[Ithika]

Not to mention there's no way of proving that you, who just deep linked their site (oh you naughty person you), are a member or not. How can they enforce it? I'm mystified.

Re:Free advert

[inode_buddha]

It's not the first time I've seen this sort of thing, but couldn't they just say that by simply using the site you are a user (regardless of membership status)? Related note: IMHO the thing to ask is "what are they *really* protecting here?

Re:Free advert

[cbreaker]

They could make the claim but if you never signed up, you'd never be presented their member "EULA" thus shouldn't be bound to it.

Of course, they probably have some fine print somewhere that says "if you even look at this web site, you must agree to the EULA, click HERE to view it."

Re:Free advert

[Jane_Dozey]

But my simply looking at their site I have not agreed to their terms and conditions (I didn't say "yes" to anything and therefore didn't enter into a legal agreement).

I'm also wondering how these terms and conditions can be enforced against people who are not within legal juristiction.

"IMHO the thing to ask is "what are they *really* protecting here?"

I would have thought money (do advertisers pay more to get the ads on the front page?), but I could be wrong :-)

Re:Free advert

[cybersaga]

Google, who needs 'em?

Apparantly not them.
From their Terms and Conditions:

Other Limitations

Unless otherwise provided within these Terms, or unless specific applicable law requires Orbitz to allow you to do so, you may not do any of the following without the prior written consent of Orbitz:

* Use any robot, spider, other automatic device, or manual process to monitor Content;

I guess they really don't want to be in any search results.

Re:Free advert

[plague3106]

"if you even look at this web site, you must agree to the EULA, click HERE to view it."

If they are allowed to do so, then I should be allowed to post a sign outside my house that says 'by looking or walking within 50ft of my house you agree to pay me $100.00'

Why shouldn't that fly, if Obitiz logic does?

Re:Free advert

[porcupine8]

I would have thought money (do advertisers pay more to get the ads on the front page?), but I could be wrong :-)

There are no ads on the front page. There aren't really any ads anywhere on the site, except for other parts of the site. They don't make money through ads, they make money via a $5 service fee every time you book a flight. (Or other service fees for other services.)

Re:Free advert

[emilymildew]

Right, except they aren't that stupid, so they give Google permission. Simple.

Re:Free advert

[spiffturk]

Jesus. Mentioning a company != advertizing for a company. Particularly when the company is mentioned in an unflattering light. Is slashdot advertizing for Microsoft whenever it mentions their latest FUD?

Did I miss some meeting where this became a fashionable new form of trolling, or what?

--
Will

Re:Free advert

[Jane_Dozey]

Ah, thanks for pointing that out. I'd never even heard of them before today :)

Re:Free advert

[cbreaker]

It's because there's a lot of really stupid people making laws, and some really smart lawyers trying to make more money.

There's a lot of rules that apply to one medium that does not apply to others.

You can have a dog on a rope outside barking his ass off 24 hours a day, and it's fine. But if you play your stereo for 20 minutes too loud, a neighbor can call the cops and have it turned off.

You can make a copy of a CD for backup purposes legally, but you can't circumvent the copy protection to do so without breaking the law.

You can be charged $50,000 for downloading a 2MB MP3 from an internet source, but only $300 by driving 50Mph over the speed limit.

There's so many examples of "What the hell? This makes no sense!" that it's become a sad fact of life.

Re:Free advert

[QuietLagoon]

does that justify giving them a free advert on slashdot?

Judging by what I've read here so far, I doubt if any advertising that Orbitz gets from this exposure is beneficial.

Re:Free advert

[porcupine8]

It really makes the no-deep-linking make even LESS sense, since they do make just as much money off your transaction no matter where on the site you start it...

Re:Free advert

[c]

I know some marketing folks fall into the "as long as people are talking about you" school, but I don't think " are a bunch of morons" looks anything like "free" advertising to the rest of us. Even if "" is a link to a website.

c.

Re:Free advert

[Anonymous Coward]

Did I miss some meeting where this became a fashionable new form of trolling, or what?

NICE TROLL

Re:Free advert

[nelsonal]

They are protecting their business against sites like TravelZoo. They make their money by buying hotels in bulk and reselling them at a profit or by getting airline bookings through them. They accomplish this by offering competitive overall pricing with some loss leaders (cheap hotels to increase air bookings and justify overall low prices) and some profit centers (higher priced hotels that make them the money. Sites like TravelZoo scrape all the travel sites and allow you to quickly compare expedia, orbitz, joebob's travel page etc. Since you don't really get any extra services if you use Expedia or Orbitz consumers are interested in the lowest price, but both companies make their money by making it difficult to quickly compare prices. Deep links make it much easier to compare prices between travel sites and lower margins for the industry.

Re:Free advert

[AviLazar]

Saying "it wasn't me, it was someone who was sitting at my computer" doesn't always work. Otherwise hackers could tell the fed's who come busting down their doors "It wasn't me, it was my dog who d/l'd and burned all those mp3s".

Re:Free advert

[ricotest]

Google works on the principle of ranking sites higher up for every site that links to them (using the keywords you're searching for). So if there is a ToS present, less people will link to them and their PageRank will fall like a ton of bricks.

Re:Free advert

[emilymildew]

Except for all those people who are linking to the front page? I don't know. I don't see how they are going to stop Google, or why they'd even want to. They're stupid, but are they THAT stupid?

Re:Free advert

[Anonymous Custard]

You can make a copy of a CD for backup purposes legally, but you can't circumvent the copy protection to do so without breaking the law.

Isn't this like saying you can freely come and go to a public park as you please, but it's illegal to unhook the latch or scale the fence to get into the park in the first place?

Maybe we need to think up a clever interpretation of what exactly is "copyright protection" to deal with the DMCA?

Re:Free advert

[Suidae]

Actually barking dogs are considered a public nuisance too, its just that you have to deal with all those animal rights people if you turn them off. Depending on your neighbors and your local law enforcement, its not hard to get a ticket for a barking dog.

Re:Free advert

[PedanticSpellingTrol]

Exactly, all their advertising for microsoft is strictly limited to the Flash box under the latest FUD.

Re:Free advert

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea, so let's advertise one that actually deserves some attention: eztrip.com ... faster, less cluttered, good prices.

Re:Free advert

[alienmole]

You can be charged $50,000 for downloading a 2MB MP3 from an internet source, but only $300 by driving 50Mph over the speed limit.

There's so many examples of "What the hell? This makes no sense!" that it's become a sad fact of life.

Some of these things make perfect sense: driving 50 mph above the speed limit, you're endangering the lives of a few other generally ordinary individuals - until you actually injure or kill some of them, you're OK. Downloading a 2MB MP3, you've actually committed the heinous theft of intellectual property, allegedly damaging the income of a large group of corporations. Follow the money...

Re:Free advert

[cbreaker]

I'm hoping you're being sarcastic. Endangering lives should always be more serious then possibly, maybe, potentially, but never actually proven, theft of sales from a large corporation by downloading a song.

While downloading a music file may be illegal, it should not hold an unbelievably higher penalty. While we all know WHY it does (big time corporations) it still doesn't make sense that something should exist like this in a society where the people supposedly run their own government.

Come on...

[djkitsch]

How about someone sits them down and explains what would happen to the web if everyone had this policy?

Jesus, you'd think their web developers would have pointed out their stupidity - or maybe I'm just being naive.

Re:Come on...

[Anonymous Coward]

Who are you answering to ?
The story was submitted by chekovma, not by Jesus, otherwise it'd look like this.

Re:Come on...

[flatt]

Jesus, you'd think their web developers would have pointed out their stupidity - or maybe I'm just being naive.

Oh, I'm sure they did. PHB's all the way.

Re:Come on...

[djkitsch]

Yeah, I pretty much assumed that - but isn't it better to have a *little* faith in human intelligence? OK, now I *am* being naive :-)

Re:Come on...

[ecklesweb]

I think your only naiveté is believing that the managers who made the decision lend any weight to what their web developers tell them.

Re:Come on...

[Threni]

> How about someone sits them down and explains what would happen to the web if
> everyone had this policy?

They're probably more interested in what happens to just their company if just that company has that policy. If it's better for them AND worse for everyone else then it doesn't make it a bad business decision for that company.

Re:Come on...

[Threni]

> Yeah, I pretty much assumed that - but isn't it better to have a *little* faith
> in human intelligence? OK, now I *am* being naive :-)

It depends on your definition of "better". Your definition is nicer and more touchy feely, but less useful in the real world!

Re:Come on...

[ShamusYoung]

They're probably more interested in what happens to just their company if just that company has that policy. If it's better for them AND worse for everyone else then it doesn't make it a bad business decision for that company.

This sort of calculation drives a LOT of the annoyances of the 'net. Spam, Popups, Preposterous Terms of Use, and forced registration all have similar effocts: "Hey! This is 20% more annoying for the user / victim but is 0.00001% better for us! Let's do it!"

The internet has proved that you can create a lot of annoying behavior by placing people out of arm's reach of each other.

Re:Come on...

[Deathlizard]

They wouldn't even have to go that far. Just explaining to them how much possible money you could be losing in free advertising is enough.

When people link to their site it's advertising. Yes it's a double edge sword to allow linking but regardless it's getting the orbitz site some publicity whether good or bad.

By not allowing links to your site in any form, their basicially relying on their Thunderbirds puppets and that gay sounding guy playing hide and seek to promote their site.

Word of mouth is the strongest form of advertising a company can have. Period. One person satisified/dissatified with your service will tell anyone interested in their product their experience. By not allowing people to post in their blogs or their site or even e-mail for that matter, your basicially cutting a large portion of free advertising you could be using to promote your business.

Re:Come on...

[Threni]

> This sort of calculation drives a LOT of the annoyances of the 'net. Spam,
> Popups, Preposterous Terms of Use, and forced registration all have similar
> effocts: "Hey! This is 20% more annoying for the user / victim but is 0.00001%
> better for us! Let's do it!"

More importantly it produces effects such as the current US government's attitude to the Kyoto Agreement. I appreciate that more SlashDotters are concerned with little adverts popping up when they're surfing, however.

Re:Come on...

[WillerZ]

If you're going to put the "é" on the end, you should also put the ï in the middle:

naïveté - n, the state in which a slashdot user credulously believes he can add an accent to a word and not get flamed.

Re:Come on...

[Da Web Guru]

How about someone sits them down and explains what would happen to the web if everyone had this policy?

Typical PHB response:

"Screw wha the rest of the Internet thinks, this is our web site!"

Re:Come on...

[Esion Modnar]

By not allowing people to post in their blogs or their site or even e-mail

And I doubt they'd ever get up from their comfy couch to actually enforce that. What they want is the pretext to come down on those few competitors who they see as abusing their website's content.

Unlike the RIAA, I'm sure they realize the bad publicity move it would be to sue the 67 yo grandmother from East Buttcrack, over a hyperlink in her blog.

And except that the Internet doesn't work this way, Orbitz should have their Internet access privileges revoked for mucking (il)legally with one of the basic technologies of the Web. They're as bad as the yuppy who moves to the country, then tries to get the pig farm next door to shut down because he can't stand the smell.

March 12

[Anonymous Coward]

Not until March 12th. Until then, this post is prefectly OK.

Re:March 12

[Anonymous Coward]

Not until March 12th. Until then, this post is prefectly OK.

Yeah, he said "those" terms and conditions. Read it again.

Terms and Conditions of this Comments

[bigtallmofo]

By reading this comment, you agree that you will not link to this comment or any of its child comments. You also agree to mod it up, using any and all mod points that you currently have.

By reading the terms and conditions of this comment, you are locked in to obeying them by the most basic laws of physics of the universe and failure to obey them will cause you and your entire family to instantly cease to exist.

Re:Terms and Conditions of this Comments

[akeyes]

I don't know why you guys are moding it 'Funny'. He is being quite serious. In fact, I just watched a friend link to his comment. He then just disapeared. I guess this things are serious.

Re:Terms and Conditions of this Comments

[cHiphead]

You also agree to mod it up, using any and all mod points that you currently have.


Holy crap, it worked.

Re:Terms and Conditions of this Comments

[emilng]

Link to parent comment

Re:Terms and Conditions of this Comments

[Grym]

I know this is funny and all, but is this what our world is coming to? Is it going to be someday that imprinted on your hamburger patty is an EULA that absolves the fast food companies of any obligation to your health?

Why is it that the courts are more worried about enforcing the letter of the law rather than the spirit of the law? Wasn't that the whole point of English Common law to begin with? To make the law accessible to the people? If people are entering into contracts and agreements simply by visiting websites, listening to ads on TV/radio, and even going to public parks how can they realistically know every facet of every agreement? That is to say that if I actually took the time to read all the small print on every ad I see, all the EULAs on software I've already bought, and check to make sure that every time I take a picture I'm not violating someone's copyright, I wouldn't get anything done.

Moreover, don't contracts/agreements hinge upon the idea of benefiting both parties in some way? What possible benefit are people gaining from being restricted by rules they neither know nor understand?

-Grym

Re:Terms and Conditions of this Comments

[sapped]

By reading the terms and conditions of this comment, you are locked in to obeying them by the most basic laws of physics of the universe and failure to obey them will cause you and your entire family to instantly cease to exist.

Could I modify that to ...your current manager to instantly cease to exist ?

If you find this amendment to your T and C's ameniable please provide the deepest spot on your comment to link to.

Re:Terms and Conditions of this Comments

[k96822]

Is it going to be someday that imprinted on your hamburger patty is an EULA that absolves the fast food companies of any obligation to your health?

Stop... giving... them... ideas!!!

Re:Terms and Conditions of this Comments

[Idarubicin]

Why is it that the courts are more worried about enforcing the letter of the law rather than the spirit of the law? Wasn't that the whole point of English Common law to begin with? To make the law accessible to the people?

I rather thought that common law arose as a system of precedents established to deal with situations where formally codified law did not exist. (Of course in jurisdictions with a common law tradition, statutes are often written to enshrine specific interpretations of existing common law principles.)

In all cases, the letter of the law does trump the spirit of the law.

Moreover, don't contracts/agreements hinge upon the idea of benefiting both parties in some way? What possible benefit are people gaining from being restricted by rules they neither know nor understand?

My understaning is that in this case, people are agreeing to these terms of service in exchange for accounts on Orbitz. The terms don't seem deceptive, just stupid.

Of course, the question of whether or not this condition would hold up in court is interesting--it seems very click-through-ish, and also the notion of restricting linking on the public internet seems kind of dubious.

How Does This Affect My Rights??

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't like their terms, don't use their service.

This has nothing to do with "rights".

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[Skye16]

Ahh, until their webmonkeys forget to put out the robots.txt file, Google (or other) crawls them, and then they get sued for breaching their TOS. Whether they'd win or not isn't the issue; it's still pretty damn expensive to defend yourself from lawsuits. Sure, Google brings in mad cash, but I'm sure they'd much rather spend that on free soda for their employees than epic teams of lawyers.

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[ockegheim]

I accessed their Terms of Service, referred to me from /. , to ponder some suspect clauses. This puts me in the category of "...obtaining ... content ... through our websites".

Just to tempt you: Don't follow this link, or you'll be a very naughty boy or girl!

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[Anonymous Coward]

Because being a citizen is just like being a customer.

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[ultranova]

Ahh, until their webmonkeys forget to put out the robots.txt file, Google (or other) crawls them, and then they get sued for breaching their TOS.

Does Google have an account at Orbitz ? If not, then any TOS Orbitz posts doesn't bind Google.

Simply viewing a web page does not make you bound into whatever inane rules that web page's maker has posted. Not even in the US, altought Orbitz can propably drive any private linker into banckrupty with court fees, so the law doesn't really matter there...

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[hellgate]

This has nothing to do with "rights".

Well, suppose it becomes common for companies to demand a permission for anyone (especially those they don't like) to link to their sites. Won't that affect our rights to use the web as it was designed?

Suppose it went far enough that a letter was sent on behalf of a well-known Linux distributor saying "our client does not allow others to provide links to our client's web site without permission".

And it just happened.

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[dAzED1]

don't be stupid. It would cost Orbitz MORE to file a frivolous lawsuit against Google than it would cost Google to defend against it. The lawyers on both sides want to get paid, and there's all the court fees, and the danger of coming across as being frivolous...

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[Haeleth]

Ahh, until their webmonkeys forget to put out the robots.txt file...

I'm afraid they remembered: http://www.orbitz.com/robots.txt

Oops, I just violated the Orbitz TOS. How careless of me. ;)

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[cbreaker]

I'm with you on this one - so many people say "well then just don't buy products from XYZ and they'll stop!!&!" But it's never that easy and it doesn't stop anyone.

Boycotts don't work! Wish so many brainless people would stop thinking they do.

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[Skye16]

Agreed, it was a bad example. What if it was some private user who posted the result set from his search criteria in his blog for some reason or another? Clearly as benign use, but also as clearly, a breach of the TOS. And maybe I'm just paranoid in thinking they would sue some Joe Schmoe for doing this, but I've seen too many ridiculous lawsuits over the last few years to be surprised if it did happen.

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[gowen]

Won't that affect our rights to use the web as it was designed?

You don't have a right to use my webpage. OK? Even if I put it on the web and leave it accesible to everyone, you still don't have a right to use it.. I may let you, I may not. I may decide to block access based on any criteria I can determine -- apparent geographical location, whether you accept cookies, your user agent, or the selection of a pseudo-random number.

It's my website. Legally, and morally, you have no right to use it, any more than you have the right to use my toilet if I leave my house unlocked.

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[DoraLives]

You don't have a right to use my webpage. OK? Even if I put it on the web and leave it accesible to everyone, you still don't have a right to use it.

Bullshit.

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[gowen]

Ahhhh, slashdot. Home of informed intelligent debate -- weighed down by this sort of retarded idiocy from the likes of DoraLives.

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[arkanes]

There's some minor case law that might be extended to support this sort of thing. I can't remember the exact case, and I don't have time to go look right now, but it was one of the classic screen scraping/deep linking cases where someone was scraping results off a web page to drive their own site. The judge did say in his ruling that a company (or whoever, I presume) had the right to present reasonable conditions on the use of their resources (website) and that they had the right for those to be respected. I have no idea how far they could push that sort of idea. I'm sure there's some sort of argument to be made for "community standards".

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[Anonymous Coward]

However, you have no *right* to restrict publicly posted information, which you have done by putting the file on the internet.

If you don't want people looking at your data, don't publish.

Even where you have to pass through a page putting down a password (hence NOT publicly available), there is still fair use/trade rules in effect. I can therefore post a LINK to your data if I am technically able. I just may not be able to copy all of it to bypass a content restriction.

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[porcupine8]

But, if these TOS turn out to be enforceable, it sets a precedent for other sites. If every site out there had this, the web would become nearly unusable. And if you have a webpage, you could get in a lot of trouble if you don't thoroughly check every site you link to.

But I guess if you don't like it, you can just not use the web.

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[Vann_v2]

Legally, I call bullshit unless you cite me some precedent. I'd say putting your website on the public internet is an implicit statement that I'm allowed to use it. How can you have any reasonable expectationation of privacy?

Morally, I call bullshit, and will happily use your website as I see fit. Heck, I might even apply my own stylesheets to your website, or use a screenreader to read your website to me.

Can you stop me?

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[Mr. No Skills]

Is Orbitz really going to sue? Or, are they just going to cancel your account with them? I've read TFA but can't really find the rule or the penalty (I'm a human, not a laywer).

I use Orbitz all the time, and don't think this is going to change my opinion of them. There's not much to link to them past the home page for results, because they're constantly changing, unless you're just trying to help someone that doeen't know how to get the search going. I cut and paste the "matrix" in Email when a group of us are going somewhere or when I'm trying to figure out a budget for a trip, but this is private stuff.

I think all they're trying to do is limit the ability of people to glom on to their site for aggregating prices (I'm thinking sidestep.com, which combines airlines that don't participate in the Sabre system behind Orbitz, like Southwest). They'd probably sue things like this.

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[Vann_v2]

Expectationation? Haha. I crack myself up.

That, of course, was supposed to be "expectation."

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[gowen]

I'd say putting your website on the public internet is an implicit statement that I'm allowed to use it.

That's true, but it shows that you have know idea what a right is.

If I decide that no-one from your home country can access my web page, and block access based on IP address, you have absolutely no redress to force me to allow you access. If you had a right to use it, you would now have redress. So me banning you does not infringe on any right that you have.

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a web site with image galleries. I decided to block access to images unless the request has the right referer on it. Why? Because people were linking to my images from chat boards and the like. I don't mind the reuse of my images, but making me pay the bandwidth bill for someone else's use of that image out of context is unfair. There are lots of perfectly legitimate things I can do to block access, but (of course) once I hand out the file my ability to control your use of it ends. That's why GP was talking about prevention, not after-the-fact restriction.

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[dAzED1]

they'd only have a chance of being "effective" if they could somehow make it a crime. That's the only reason the RIAA goes after individuals - the idea of making someone an example. In a civil trial, they could only be after one thing - money. They'd have to show that Joe Schmoe robbed them of XYZ amount of money due to posting something in his blog. And guess what - those damages would still be less than Orbitz would pay in court fees.

Sans something really odd happening and deep-linking to Orbitz becoming criminal, there will be neither suits against individuals, nor mega-corps. If any suits occur (versus threats of suits), they will be against mid-sized companies...or, against the select few that this was specifically targetted against (the data miners setting up their own offshoot travel sites, for example).

So really, no one will be harmed sans those that are being shmucks anyway. Them, and Orbitz themselves, due to the bad PR.

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[Junior J. Junior III]

Yeah, except, you don't have to "use their service" to provide a deep link to their site. Unless you construe merely accessing their website to be "using their service".

And no, it doesn't affect your rights TODAY, but 3 years down the road, when all their technical roadblocks have failed, and they decide to buy a law banning the practice, it'll affect a lot of people's rights.

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[porcupine8]

Does Google have an account at Orbitz ? If not, then any TOS Orbitz posts doesn't bind Google.

But if one of the programmers at Google who made it possible for them to deep-link to orbitz has an orbitz account, then what? Or one of Google's executives? They don't make it very clear who, exactly, is the user here.

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[Vann_v2]

I do have redress, though: I can use a proxy. If you had a right to prevent me from using your website you could stop me, but really, there's no way to do that without stopping everyone. Unless you mean I have a specific legal redress, in which case, yes, I agree that in general I have no legal redress.

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[gowen]

If you had a right to prevent me from using your website you could stop me

No, no, no, no, no. You're confusing the right to stop you with the ability to stop you. They're completely orthogonal.

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[Mant]

If you put up a sign in a public place and said to people, you don't have a right to read it, how seriously would they take you?

You don't have a right to the contents of someone's website, in the sense they can certainly not put the contents up on the web.

You can also put technical restrictions on how it can be seen. Indeed, if you don't want the general public to see it, you really ought to.

If you don't though, you are really putting it into a public space. Now, you stil own copyright on your site, people don't have a right to take it. But look at it? Sure.

Now, I don't think any country has a law saying people can read stuff in a public space, but rather it would come under those rights you have becuase nobody says you can't.

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[drinkypoo]

Wired News: Attention Editors: Deep Link Away

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[gowen]

You can also put technical restrictions on how it can be seen.

Right. Now stop there. If I can restrict how it's seen, you don't have any rights. If you had rights, I wouldn't be allowed to restrict you. That's what a right is.

Got that? A right is something that no one can legally restrict. If I can legally restrict it, it's not a right.

Jesus. Sometimes this place is like teaching kindergarten

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[civilizedINTENSITY]

Well you have to admit, "bullshit" is short and to the point, and it is *exactly* what I thought. I'd moderate that as insightful "bullshit".

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[tombeard]

Are you aware that Orbitz has been sold. They are not the same company they used to be and I suspect they won't be a great place to shop for long. They used to be run by a group of airlines directly selling seats, now the new owner is going to want a markup at very least.

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[Skye16]

I agree that, in all probability, most (if not all) will be safe from litigation. However, I still don't feel comfortable with that axe hanging over my head, even if it is firmly bolted to the ceiling.

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[iamwahoo2]

Okay, but what the hell does linking have to do with using their service? Until an exchange of value takes place (ie. you purchase a reservation), then no agreement is legally enforceable. It has everything to do with rights. They put a site on the web, registered with verisign for dns, and they think that gives them the right to tell you how YOU should use your browser, or set up YOUR webpage. The policy is in conflict with the very workings of the internet. If they do not like how the internet works, then they should find a technology that better supports their business needs, like the phone. We should not change the structure of the internet to suit the desires of a few companies.

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you actually agreed to those draconian terms of service? Oh dear, better luck next time then.
Meanwhile I can perform the linking for you as I definitely have not agreed to those and thus they don't apply to me: http://www.orbitz.com/robots.txt.

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[Tassach]

Using your logic, if I put up a billboard, you don't have the right to look at it unless you agree to my terms and conditions.

This is bullshit.

If you publish something in a public forum, you are, by definition, giving up some control over it.

You can't set out a stack of free catalogs and then try to dictate how people can use them. If you give me a catelog, I don't have to use it to auy your crap -- I'm perfectly within my rights to shred it and use it for kitty litter if I so desire.

More appropos to deep linking, I'm within my rights to tell other people that item X is on page Y of your catalog, allowing them to go directly to the thing they want rather than having to read through it page by page.

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[Anonymous Coward]

It has everything to do with rights.

They're asserting that they have a right to control what you do on other sites if you as much as mention their site. That's just silly.

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[qeveren]

Yes... but HAVE you restricted access to it? Just saying 'no, you can't look!' isn't restricting access, when it comes to things like the internet, no matter how much people might want to say otherwise. I'm pretty certain that's been legally established.

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[gowen]

That's not relevant in the slightest. The fact of whether I can or cannot restrict access by various means has no bearing on your rights, which is the issue.

And besides, Orbitz are applying their rules as contractual terms in the creation of an account, and they very much are allowed to do that.

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[gnu-generation-one]

"If you don't like their terms, don't use their service."

The services they provide are enumerated in their instructions to their webserver. If it delivers a file, the file has been delivered with the permission of the site owner. Pseudo-legal bluffing doesn't even come into it.

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[oasisbob]

What a weird robots.txt file.

Try this link:

http://www.orbitz.com/creditcard/

WTF is that? (It redirects to Microsoft's homepage...)

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[Vann_v2]

You say as if what constitutes a "right" is as easy to define as something from a math textbook. I'm not really interested in continuing this here, but there are centuries worth of thought as to what exactly is a right, and not all of them agree with you (or me).

Re:How Does This Affect My Rights??

[Mr. No Skills]

Hmmmm... no. Not aware of that. I started using Orbitz because their $6 fee was less than the $35 fee the travel agency charges. I always thought the connection to the Sabre system gave them an edge, and used SideStep to keep them honest.

I have bought a few tickets this year directly from United, where there is no commission and usually an extra 1000 miles thrown into your account. If Orbitz wants to jack up their price they'll have to provide some service. The airlines are clearly trying to squeeze agencies out of the picture (maybe that's the reason for the spin-off?). After spending a night at O'Hare I definately know that Orbitz isn't providing the service of an agency at this point.

Message to Timothy

[millwall]

Ok, so if you post a dupe of story it could be serious. No dupe postings of this story after March 12th :)

Re:Message to Timothy

[pr0nbot]

TIMOTHY [to self]: Shit, better disable the auto-dupe cron jobs.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong...

[SamSim]

(and I mean that sincerely), but I can link to whoever the hell I want, right?

Re:Now, correct me if I'm wrong...

[Anonymous Coward]

(and I mean that sincerely), but I can link to whoever the hell I want, right?

Yes but Orbitz have the right to not serve you. If you don't actually use their site then I doubt they could get anything out of that (IANAL).

Re:Now, correct me if I'm wrong...

[PornMaster]

Well, by signing up with them for an account, you agree to terms which aren't like those usually associated with browsing the web. If the pages are something you could get to without agreeing to terms, then it would be difficult to justify their position, but when you click "I Agree", you've agreed not to.

Of course, something like this is enforceable through technical means, which is probably more workable as a solution.

Re:Now, correct me if I'm wrong...

[SamSim]

I don't have an account with Orbitz, in fact I have no idea who they are or what service they provide. I meant from my own site (see sig).

Re:Now, correct me if I'm wrong...

[CmdrGravy]

What if my alterego CmdrGravy signs up for one of their accounts and then CmdrSauce who is the real CmdrGravy deep links into their site ?

It looks to me like this is an utterly uneforceable rule and like you say if they really wanted to enforce this they could do so technically a lot more easily.

It's horrible to see companies making use of the web to earn themselves money and attempting to do daft stuff like this to force me to use the web in the way they would prefer rather than the way which suits me.

Re:Now, correct me if I'm wrong...

[Errtu76]

Yup. If something isn't allowed, they should create it in such a way that it's impossible for you to link to in the first place.

Re:Now, correct me if I'm wrong...

[DavidTC]

Yes, but if you link to Orbitz, you are forbidden from ever becoming a member, which is required to purchase anything from them.

At least, that's the way I'm reading it. Quick, everyone link to Orbitz, so you can't ever legally use them!

Re:Now, correct me if I'm wrong...

[tombeard]

I'll second that, esp. if the host is WWW. Using WWW as a host implies consent to link.

Re:Now, correct me if I'm wrong...

[Feanturi]

1) Someone signs up with bogus information and false intentions
2) They gather and then post a bunch of deep links to someone else's blog urging people to spread those links around.
3) Links spread, by people who were not even asked if they agree to that silly rule or not, and they are completely in the clear.
4) Welcome to the web as we have always known it, nothing new to see here.

When will companies learn

[afidel]

A legal/contractual agreement which is established by a click through agreement is unlikely to be enforcable, and even if it were, HOW are they going to enforce it? Are they going to sue you for linking to them? If the sued party got an even semi-competent judge and council it wouldn't be much of an issue, if you put a site on the public internet, and don't take proper technical measures to insure that people don't take actions you don't want them to then your site is pretty much fair game. It's extremely easy to insure that people don't go to a part of your site that you don't want them to, porn operators have been doing it for the better part of a decade now, so scrap the stupid unenforcable EULA crap and have your web monkies earn their salaries!

Re:When will companies learn

[yodaj007]

so scrap the stupid unenforcable EULA crap and have your web monkies earn their salaries!

Hehe. Web monkeys.

Re:When will companies learn

[sunweasel]

Orbitz IT decision makers had a poor track record before this. In 2003 the site was offline for 13 hours. They blamed the outage on Oracle RAC.
http://news.com.com/2100-1017_3-1026450.html?tag=f d_top

Several articles from comp.databases.oracle.server talk about how Orbitz had implemented 9iRAC on a Wintel platform.

Re:When will companies learn

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you name a case where a click through EULA has failed? All the slashdot monkeys say they can't be enforced but yet they continue to do so, even in court such as every MMORPG in existance.

Re:When will companies learn

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not even a click-through agreement, it's a little "Terms and Conditions" link at the bottom of the page, in a small font.

Re:When will companies learn

[Otterley]

Wrong. Click-through agreements are clearly enforceable in many cases, particularly in the 7th Circuit; see ProCD, Inc. v. Zeidenberg, 86 F.3d 1447 (7th Cir., 1996).

Use the referrer field

[soundman32]

Can't their web server just reject or redirect any page requests that don't have a referrer field of their own web site?

Re:Use the referrer field

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't their web server just reject or redirect any page requests that don't have a referrer field of their own web site?

Yeah, I'd have thought so. It might confuse tinfoil hat types though, or some proxies, who refuse to send referrers because the Orbitz site would break. You could, of course, use "no referrer and no session cookie" but the tinfoil hats aren't going to use cookies either.

Re:Use the referrer field

[kd3bj]

Their lawyers didn't think of that, apparantly.
If all you have is a hammer, everything
looks like a nail.

Re:Use the referrer field

[codepoetix]

I shouldn't think that there's a large overlap between the set of people with sufficient knowledge about the web to have thought of that solution, and the set of people who would want to prevent deep linking in the first place.

Re:Use the referrer field

[DoraLives]

Can't their web server just reject or redirect any page requests that don't have a referrer field of their own web site?

Of course they can. But how in hell will they ever see another new customer via the internet again?

Too funny.

Re:Use the referrer field

[ChristTrekker]

If a blank referer field causes a site to malfunction, it's broken. Several popular browsers allow you to not send referer, after all. Orbitz should use some kind of real authentication (even simple cookies) instead.

Re:Use the referrer field

[Jim Hall]

>>Can't their web server just reject or redirect any page requests that don't have a referrer field of their own web site?

>Yeah, I'd have thought so. It might confuse tinfoil hat types though, or some proxies, who refuse to send referrers because the Orbitz site would break. You could, of course, use "no referrer and no session cookie" but the tinfoil hats aren't going to use cookies either.

Tin foil hat types who disallow cookies are probably a small percentage of the folks who will use Orbitz. While I hate sites that force cookies or referrers, I'd much prefer they take the technical route and do that rather than this silly "no deep linking to us or we'll C&D your ass" nonsense.

Re:Use the referrer field

[Laebshade]

As another poster implied, they don't want to block their affiliates. Of course, they could just set up their affiliates URIs to be an allowed referrer, but that would probably be too much trouble for them to keep track of who has their hands in what.

Re:Use the referrer field

[mark-t]

Well they'll obviously allow "shallow links" from other sites, and unless they have their server set up absolutely ridiculously, it should be easy for the server to recognize a URL that's considered "deep" from one that isn't.

Re:Use the referrer field

[kjamez]

Of course they can. But how in hell will they ever see another new customer via the internet again?

by only putting that restriction on deep-linked files? (eg NOT the frontpage, or stuff with a google referrer, or maybe just !blank || @orbitz.com in the referrer?)

granted you can disable the http-referrer bit in some browsers ...

Re:Use the referrer field

[mattyrobinson69]

session cookies

Re:Use the referrer field

[Raphael]

It might confuse tinfoil hat types though, or some proxies, who refuse to send referrers because the Orbitz site would break.

Any web admin who has a clue knows that many visitors will not have a valid referer (usually because of a proxy, including some large corporate proxies). So blocking the requests that have no referer would have the unfortunate effect of blocking many legit visitors.

On the other hand, blocking all requests that do have a referer but for which the referer does not match the site itself or one of its affiliates is likely to work.

There are already a number of web sites doing that: they block you or redirect you to their home page if your requested a deep link and your request contains a referer and the referer does not match several variations of the site itself (including IP addresses) or one of its affiliates. This is even relatively easy to set up with Apache using mod_rewrite and some environment variables.

Re:Use the referrer field

[idontgno]

Can't their web server just reject or redirect any page requests that don't have a referrer field of their own web site?
...
Their lawyers didn't think of that, apparantly.

Which tells me that the webmonkeys are only cooperating as far as they're forced to. If the web devs wanted to, they could volunteer to turn on referrer-id blocking and make this dumbass policy stick. But it hasn't happened, so perhaps we're seeing some non-violent protest action here.

Or maybe Orbitz' webmonkey staff is stupid. (We can't rule that out without further evidence, right?)

Re:Use the referrer field

[AvitarX]

But they want you to brows and see a lw fair and sign up. They don't want to hassle you in advance.

Re:Use the referrer field

[Luv2Sin]

Ironically though, instead of investing a few hours of time coordinating between Marketing and IT and a few ongoing hours of maintenance -- they are going through the hassle of engaging lawyers, not to mention the countless man-hours now that they are going to try to find deep-linkers still and prosecute. Technology, with a little bit of good planning, would solve this ten times easier and so much more effectively.

Re:Use the referrer field

[automaticlarynx]

Sure, they could, but I believe that the purpose of this innane rule is to stop people from using bots to collect important dynamic information from their website.

So, to circumvent such a plan, all somebody would have to do is write a bot that instead of delivering a sneaky URL, sneakily types in the appropriate values into the form fields just like a human user would and then collect the information that way.

Of course, now that I've thought of that, It's clear that their plain is doomed to failure from the beginning. Orbitz.com blows.

Re:Use the referrer field

[phorm]

By allowing non-local referers for the primary index page?

Re:Use the referrer field

[Tassach]

They don't want to hassle you in advance.

The EULA would disagree with that view.

The problem is that they want to have their cake and eat it too. If a site is easy to use, then anyone can use it in any way, including ways that you might not like. If you make it harder, you can enforce a particular usage pattern at the expense of ease-of-use. You can't lock something up and have it open at the same time.

Re:Use the referrer field

[geminidomino]

Won't help. They want control of who links to their HOMEPAGE too! Article title is misleading. It's not JUST "deep linking" that's forbidden. If they say "don't link to our homepage," according to the new terms, you can't.

Re:Use the referrer field

[Anonymous Coward]

bffaaaahahahaha ... spewed coffee out my nose. you made my day.

There is no such thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

...as bad publicity. Seriously, way to get hits (I'd never heard of them).

Re:There is no such thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd never heard of them

Congrats to whoever wrote your popup blocker.

Re:There is no such thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

mozilla, and of course squid blacklists clean it all up, yeah :)

maybe we should oblige them

[slashjames]

By removing all links to Orbitz from other domains, watch them fall in search engine rankings. Orbitz fails to realize they only are high in the search results because other sites link to them. Their current policy indicates they don't want to even show up!

Re:maybe we should oblige them

[glyph42]

That's not just funny, it's insightful. That was the first thing that came to my mind - looks like they want to drop their site off of Google altogether. As you wish, Orbitz.

Re:maybe we should oblige them

[AndroidCat]

Alternately, since they don't know if the user is the person who created a deep link into Orbitz, create deep links into everything there and let Orbitz remove all their pages. But your way sounds like less work.

Re:maybe we should oblige them

[SamSim]

I was considering setting up a link on my homepage to an Orbitz page just to spite them and see what they did about it, but then I thought... Perhaps it's reverse psychology. If lots of /.ers have the same idea, that's MORE links for Orbitz, and a HIGHER search engine rank!

Cunninger than the United Nations Bureau of Cunning.

Re:maybe we should oblige them

[danharan]

Bad SE rankings probably spells doom for them.

If I had more time and money, I'd give their financial data a look to see if there's any money to be made selling them short.

Re:maybe we should oblige them

[Anonymous Coward]

> Cunninger than the United Nations Bureau of Cunning.
I was always told its the United Nations Bureau of Cunt.

Damn you to destroy my dreams! :(

Re:maybe we should oblige them

[stomv]

Cunninger than the United Nations Bureau of Cunning.

I hear they have really top notch linguists.

Re:maybe we should oblige them

[cybermage]

You could always link to Orbitz' competitors instead.

Re:maybe we should oblige them

[iabervon]

Search engine rankings? Google isn't Orbitz, so they have to quit linking to them. They could ask about the front page, and avoid linking to other pages, but it would be less trouble to simply exclude them entirely.

Re:maybe we should oblige them

[Anonymous Coward]

Just spell the URL wrong (e.g., "Snorbitz"), and mention in the visible text that the user has to correct by deleting the extra bits, by analogy to various techniques for discouraging spam-bots from harvesting e-mail addresses from "mailto" links. There are more sophisticated options. It would also make it hard for any Orbitz automatic screening bot to find illicit URL deep-linking.

Re:maybe we should oblige them

[Anonymous Coward]

Just use:

<A HREF="http://www.orbitz.com/I-dont-use-their-site- so-I-never-agreed-to-any-TandCs-so-they-can-stuff- it/" rel="nofollow"> I personally believe that Orbitz' lawsuit should be considered meritless under the unclean hands doctrine </A>

With mod-rewrite and such, they COULD use a technological mechanism to break deep links, but no, they had to call the lawyers and waste taxpayer money on this lawsuit.

Now Google won't credit them, but you can still give them crap. Thankfully, I don't use their page, so I cannot possibly be bound by their T&C, thus I don't care what sort of nonsense links I make up to their site. And any judge who thinks I had "notice" of the T&C from reading this site should note that there's no damn way to back out of the T&C which I already know I disagree with, and by visiting the damned site, I'd be forced to agree to them.

Oh well, any judge or lawyer who reads this must recuse themself from any case involving me unless they are litigating on my behalf or ruling in my favor. If they buy the above illogic, they ought to buy this last bit of tripe as well...

Re:maybe we should oblige them

[syukton]

Yes, but only if you do it like this:

Orbitz!

(think: litigious bastards)

I guess they were just tired of the slashdottings

[Mad Merlin]

...and perhaps they're hoping that by not allowing anyone to link to them, they'll cut down on their bandwidth bill.

Silly silly people!

[spineboy]

That's like having a newspaper and saying that you MUST always start reading on the first page - you may not start on the sports page, or in my case, at the comics.

I'm sorry - it's out theere in the public domain, supported by our tax dollars. I can look at it any damn way I'd like to.

Re:Silly silly people!

[Donny Smith]

> I can look at it any damn way I'd like

I'm sorry but you can't if they don' want you to.
If they redirect all visitors to their home page, unless the visitor has a recent session cookie of Orbitz.com, you won't be able to access anything without first visiting Orbitz.com.

Re:Silly silly people!

[DaHat]

orbitz is supported by our tax dollars?

Please, do explain.

Re:Silly silly people!

[brpr]

orbitz is supported by our tax dollars? Please, do explain.

The internet was developed using and is now supported by tax dollars. I think that's what the OP meant.

Re:Silly silly people!

[DaHat]

I am certainly interested in hearing what the parent has to say... however I think you are a little off base.

Yes, the internet was started by the government with tax dollars... however I have seen little that says that it is now supported by tax dollars.

Re:Silly silly people!

[brpr]

Well, most of the telecommunications infrastructure in general is maintained by government subsidy of one kind or another, even if it's subsidy of a private company rather than direct subsidy. Do you think that the phone network is maintained across every corner of America because it is profitable?

Ok Orbizt, come and get me!

[Andy_R]

I'm breaking section 6 of your stupid and unenforceable rules by not getting a 'separate linking agreement' with you before posting that link, and I'm not going to edit this post if you ask me to, becasue slashdot doesn't let anyone edit posts.

I challenge you to try and enforce your new terms and conditions, or drop them.

Re:Ok Orbizt, come and get me!

[Anonymous Coward]

Does the 'R' in Andy R stand for redundant?

You're just echoing the OP...

Re:Ok Orbizt, come and get me!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's "Retard".

Too much of something good?

[peterdaly]

Generally I think their idea may be good, but maybe taken too far and/or poorly executed.

Here's why:
Orbitz is a travel site for purchasing tickets, etc. The price and availability of these things changes constantly. Additionally, I would bet they may run into customer service problems if too many people are all trying to view and/or book the same flights at the same time. The system is really designed to be a point in time quote system. The problem comes when someone does a deep link, to a quote for example. Chances are if a link is posted on the web (or sent through email), the page the new visitor sees may be different from the page/price/availability the creator of the link saw.

That all being said, there are technical means to reduce, if not eliminate this problem. Could be they are implementing a technical solution, and are putting this in the TOS so they have something to point to when deep links suddenly stop working and customers complain.

PR wise they could have done this better, but I bet they never thought a place like this would publicize a TOS change.

On the other hand, I could be all wrong about their motives. :-)

-Pete

Re:Too much of something good?

[duvie]

If they don't want links to point-in-time quotes, the answer is not to write an unenforceable license/linking agreement. The answer is to make the links ephemeral using session keys or similar. People will stop linking PDQ to pages that aren't there. Meanwhile, Orbitz pages that do stick around (e.g. a search starter screen for car rental deals) are worth linking to, and Orbitz should want people linking to them.

Sounds here like the lawyers beat down the programmers and the result is... about what you'd expect.

Re:Too much of something good?

[DoraLives]

Sounds here like the lawyers beat down the programmers and the result is... about what you'd expect.

We can only hope that somebody on the inside (What? A programmer who reads slashdot?) will post AC with all the hilarious details regarding how this one came to pass.

What we have here is definitely potential Hall of Fame stuff. I'd love to see it.

Re:Too much of something good?

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to work for them in the technical area, so I can answer this question to a point. Deep linking into the search engine is not possible.

The flight data is loaded each time a seach is done and compiled on the fly. That search data also changes ever 4 hours (aprox). The URL is based on the session you generated when you showed up, not the search paramaters. Deep linking to a search for ORD => MIA would not work.

I cannot say why they implemented this new policy, but I do know that since the merger with Cendant, things have gotten very corporate and the "new masters" do not run things like the old ones.

It went from being a cool tech start up to a corporate beuocratic nightmare.

Re:Too much of something good?

[jetmarc]

> The system is really designed to be a point in time quote system. The problem comes when someone
> does a deep link, to a quote for example. Chances are if a link is posted on the web (or sent through
> email), the page the new visitor sees may be different from the page/price/availability the creator of the link saw.

And how is that a bad thing?

If, on a "London photos" page a link invites to "check flights to London", I would expect to see
the current availability and prices instead of the ones a year ago.

Well, actually I would expect the link to not work at all (due to changes of the directory hierarchy
on the travel site), or to be a spam trap. So I wouldnt click it anway..

Re:Too much of something good?

[Anonymous Coward]

I work there. If you'd like me to apologize for working at a 'big corporation' with lawyers who may or may not understand the web very well, please don't hold your breath. I'd love to accept an offer to work on some fun open source project at the same pay, but I didn't find any of those. Orbitz is actually a pretty sane place to work, and we use Linux every day. I like it there.

If you think that they were running TOS changes past the technical development group, you are extremely naive. What do we care? We have much more important things to be doing, like adding more features so we can make more money. Frankly I still don't care, and I think this article is pretty funny.

Everyone who is writing about deep linking to the search results is nuts. Search results are ephemeral, and linked to sessions. In fact virtually everything on Orbitz is linked to a session. Deep linking is pretty much useless. If they *had* run the TOS changes past us, we could have told them that, but oh well.

Rant away people. Maybe you can get us to change it. But frankly, don't expect the tech dev staff to be sweating it.

So give 'em what they want.

[iJames]

If they don't want links, don't link to them. I don't see how anybody is hurt by this except them.

Re:So give 'em what they want.

[clickster]

I'll give you my reason. Personally I really don't care about deep links to Orbitz. I don't buy there and I don't travel often. However, my issue comes with setting precedent. I don't want to set a precedent of allowing a website to determine what publicly accessible pages can and can't be linked to. It's like telling me what books I can and can't reference in my term paper. Now, if they require a username and password to log in and the deep link includes logging the person that is clicking in to the site to view the page, then I might side with Orbitz. But a blanket "you can't link to anything on Orbitz.com" is ridiculous.

reading != agreement

[retards]

Just by reading an EULA doesn't mean you agree to it.

Maybe, _maybe_, if you click 'I agree' you are bound to some parts.

Anyway, if they want to be a little island in cyberspace, then fine by me. If they really want to protect their IP they can pull out the ethernet cable from their webserver's NIC.

on the plus side....

[Anonymous Coward]

...i wonder if they've heard of the /. effect?

(i have a feeling they are about to :-)

Re:on the plus side....

[porcupine8]

Orbitz traffic vs Slashdot traffic

Somehow, I don't think they'll even notice a slashdotting.

Nice marketing approach

[Laurentiu]

Well done Orbitz! Way to send your potential new users in the arms of your competitors! I can't wait for the day when you sue Google for breaching your Inbound Links agreement: Linking to any page of the Site other than to the homepage is strictly prohibited in the absence of a separate linking agreement with Orbitz.

There's plenty of similar sites out there, minus the stupid license terms. If this is not /. anti-advertising, I don't know what is.

Re:Nice marketing approach

[Anonymous Coward]

that's what robots.txt is for

Details?

[northcat]

WTF is orbitz and what can one do with an account on it? What are the implications of the new terms and conditions on users and why should we care? Can't /. provide *any* fucking details?

Re:Details?

[BlueCodeWarrior]

If you've ever watched TV in the US (95% of /.'s readership) then you know what Orbitz is.

If not, they book things like plane tickets and hotels. Stuff like that.

You could have just RTFA...first link in the article.

Re:Details?

[dAzED1]

why is the parent post "insightful?"

Here - go look. If you haven't figured out what the site is within 15 seconds, turn off your computer and return it to best buy or where ever you got it.

Re:Details?

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFA maybe? Come on mods, I don't want to see this whinny crap making it into my filter.

Re:Details?

[obender]

It looks like a flight booking site. I could not find any flights with it as it does not support flights that originate in Europe (including Russia), Africa, Asia, Australia and South America.

Re:Details?

[northcat]

And what the fuck can one do with an account on it? What, you expect me to create an account on it just to find out?!? One more thing, unlike what Google Maps says, there are countries in the world other than USA, Mini USA (known as Canada everywhere else) and South USA (known as Mexico everywhere else). So not everyone might know about a site that looks like it's useful mostly for Americans. And the best buy joke might not apply to all. Oh and nice way to impress the (obviously American) mods by making one post using your account and another one as AC (and probably a third one).

Re:Details?

[northcat]

Oops I don't live in USA. And you haven't answered my other questions.

Re:Details?

[dAzED1]

1) you asked what orbitz was. I told you to go to the site and see for yourself.

2) The best buy comment was an obscure shot - only idiots (or tech-uninformed) get computers from best buy.

3)I'm not sure where you're going with the Canada and Mexico bit...I don't know of anyone who thinks of Canada as "mini USA," and despite having lived 20 miles from the Mexican border for years, I don't know of anyone who thinks of Mexico as "South USA," or even Southern USA.

My post is sitting at a 1 - which means it hasn't been modded up or down (or if it has, then its been so equally). So again, you're clueless.

Yes, I think returning your computer may be the best bet.

There's a potential marketing ploy here

[91degrees]

Write soem T&C's with really nasty clauses, get /. to link to you, and then announce later that it was all a joke. Heaps fo free advertising!

Strange. I seem to be coming up with this sort of idea a lot recently.

Re:There's a potential marketing ploy here

[idontgno]

I'm sorry, you failed to answer in the form of a "Profit" list.

1. Write soem T&Cs with really nasty clauses
2. get /. to link to you
3. announce later that it was all a joke
4. ????
5. Heaps fo free advertising
6. Profit!

Short Orbitz Stock

[Deanasc]

Clearly showing a fundimental misunderstanding about how the internet works should be a huge warning flag that management doesn't understand the world they're working in.

Why would anyone need to deep link to a gum that keeps your teeth clean anyway?

Re:Short Orbitz Stock

[thedustbustr]

Its a travel site. Orbit the gum is at wrigley.com.

Re:Short Orbitz Stock

[dAzED1]

shorting only works in the short (odd, that) term - you sell stocks you claim to have, the brokerage gives you a few days to come up with them. Or, vice versa, you buy stocks with money you claim to have, and they give you a few days to come up with that.

If Orbitz fails, it won't be in the next few days. Go ahead and sell short though - brokerages love the extra fees they charge.

Re:Short Orbitz Stock

[Anonymous Coward]

You can short on margin. In which case you're given until the end of the Earth to come up with the stock. Or you're given until a margin call if the stock goes up after you bet it would go down.

Re:Short Orbitz Stock

[Doctor Faustus]

I'm not sure what deep linking mean in regards to gum, but it sounds dirty. I'll go out on a limb and say I'd like to do it to their spokesperson.

A Cease to Exist notice?

[Myriad]

By reading the terms and conditions of this comment, you are locked in to obeying them by the most basic laws of physics of the universe and failure to obey them will cause you and your entire family to instantly cease to exist.

Man, your lawyer must have friends in very high places if he can issue a Cease to Exist notice!

How is such a thing delivered? Does the Reaper come in person?

Blockwars: Free, multiplayer, Tetris like game.

Re:A Cease to Exist notice?

[FinestLittleSpace]

Yeah but then you run away from him and he breaks his ankle so you have to be the reaper till he heals...

Re:A Cease to Exist notice?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not the reaper, no. It's Hilary Rosen's latest gig - she shows up with 5 lawyers who convince a judge that you are an unauthorized version and POOF off to the bit bucket you go...

Re:A Cease to Exist notice?

[Kjella]

How is such a thing delivered? Does the Reaper come in person?

Mostly subcontracting to doctors. "I'm sorry Ms Watson, but your husband has only six months to live". Well, those and mafia bosses. "Pay up or you'll be wearing conrete shoes".

Kjella

Re:A Cease to Exist notice?

[DaveAFX]

No, I think they have to go through the UDRP process first. Then, if you lose, and do not cure the violation, the red light on your hand starts blinking, and you must report to the termination center.

Re:A Cease to Exist notice?

[Eccles]

Does the Reaper come in person?

YES.

Especially if you do the Rite of AshkEnte.

Re:A Cease to Exist notice?

[stienman]

How is such a thing delivered? Does the Reaper come in person?

It goes something like this:

Reaper: <hack><hack><slash><slash>
Reaper: You've been interred.

-Adam

Re:A Cease to Exist notice?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Man, your lawyer must have friends in very high places if he can issue a Cease to Exist notice!

How is such a thing delivered? Does the Reaper come in person?"

No, nothing so ethereal, it is more like: it will had been delivered already. The Bureau of Existence officers go back in time and see to it that your ancestors do not procreate successfully. Poof! You cease to exist. It's kind of like retroactive birth control.

Re:A Cease to Exist notice?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, once this happens, the Reaper never even knew your name!

Re:A Cease to Exist notice?

[KillerDeathRobot]

The Reaper? What has he got to do with it? Death is not the same as non-existence. Lawyers get people killed all the time. Getting them to no longer exist at all is quite a feat.

Re:A Cease to Exist notice?

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, your lawyer must have friends in very high places if he can issue a Cease to Exist notice!

Actually it is very low places. Ever since the Marry cults got a hold of Yaweh he has not really been into smiting or even harsh language. Baalzebub is still pissed off about the renaming the Israelites stuck him with (them and their damned puns) and is nearly always ready to put the smackdown on some humans.

How is such a thing delivered?

The Infernal Lords of Darkness don't really feel that the participation or notification of the adjudged is really necessary.

Re:A Cease to Exist notice?

[geminidomino]

Does the Reaper come in person?

Only if you're a wizard...

Apropriate fortune at the bottom of the page.

[Anonymous Coward]

"I hear what you're saying but I just don't care."

I hear what Orbitz is saying but don't care.

Precedent:

[SamSim]

GameFAQs has something similar to this already in place, you're not supposed to link directly to an FAQ, you have to instead link to the page with the FAQ listed on it. They claim to have link-blocking countermeasures in place to prevent exactly what I just did above from working (though I didn't find them to be effective when I tried them just now, you may disagree). Then there are infinite sites which disallow remote hotlinking to their images.

Anyway my point is that it's foolish to assume people will obey these terms and conditions, but it IS possible to enforce them manually. It would surely be entirely possible to set up some kind of referrer-looking-up script to make sure you jumped to that page from internally rather than externally.

Re:Precedent:

[Robmonster]

When I follow the direct link you posted in Firefox I get the follwoing page:-

Referer Link Error

On every single HTML page of GameFAQs is the following request:
Feel free to link to this page, but not directly to the FAQs..

You're seeing this error message because it appears that you're linking from an external site directly to one of the text files stored at GameFAQs. GameFAQs is not a free public file server. Bandwidth costs money, and when sites link directly to files stored on the site, it becomes both a financial and resource drain. We've tried asking, but some sites simply don't care, so now we've implemented a technical solution.

Your browser is reporting that you linked to a GameFAQs-hosted FAQ from http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/14/03 58202&tid=95&tid=17.

There are four possible reasons you are seeing this message:

1. You came from a direct link to a FAQ on GameFAQs from another site, and your link was properly blocked. See the paragraph above for why.
2. Your web browser is passing improper URL data in the Referrer header. Your web browser may be over-compensating for a mistake you made in the address bar, and passing this information unintentionally. To fix this, just click the "Home" link on the left and surf normally.
3. Your web browser is passing forged URL data in the Referrer header. Some browsers can be configured to hide referrer information, but instead of passing a blank header, it passes a forged one. To fix this, change your browser's security settings. If you are using Opera and having problems, try viewing this page for some pointers.
4. You are behind a firewall or proxy server, and it is passing forged URL data in the Referrer header. If you are using one of these services, you or your network administrator may need to change the configuration.

Re:Precedent:

[thedustbustr]

Referer Link Error On every single HTML page of GameFAQs is the following request: Feel free to link to this page, but not directly to the FAQs.. You're seeing this error message because it appears that you're linking from an external site directly to one of the text files stored at GameFAQs. GameFAQs is not a free public file server. Bandwidth costs money, and when sites link directly to files stored on the site, it becomes both a financial and resource drain. We've tried asking, but some sites simply don't care, so now we've implemented a technical solution. Your browser is reporting that you linked to a GameFAQs-hosted FAQ from http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/14/03 58202&tid=95&tid=17. There are four possible reasons you are seeing this message: 1. You came from a direct link to a FAQ on GameFAQs from another site, and your link was properly blocked. See the paragraph above for why. 2. Your web browser is passing improper URL data in the Referrer header. Your web browser may be over-compensating for a mistake you made in the address bar, and passing this information unintentionally. To fix this, just click the "Home" link on the left and surf normally. 3. Your web browser is passing forged URL data in the Referrer header. Some browsers can be configured to hide referrer information, but instead of passing a blank header, it passes a forged one. To fix this, change your browser's security settings. If you are using Opera and having problems, try viewing this page for some pointers. 4. You are behind a firewall or proxy server, and it is passing forged URL data in the Referrer header. If you are using one of these services, you or your network administrator may need to change the configuration.

Re:Precedent:

[SamSim]

Thank you for that: see, it does work!

(Aside: I don't know why I was able to link straight through. Probably because I'd already visited the FAQ moments earlier.)

Re:Precedent:

[nagora]

Bandwidth costs money, and when sites link directly to files stored on the site, it becomes both a financial and resource drain.

So instead we ask you to force people to go to the wrong page and then click down to the one they want, thereby er... costing us more bandwidth. Um.

TWW

Re:Precedent:

[Anonymous Coward]

Cached, probably.

Re:Precedent:

[EzInKy]

When I follow the direct link you posted in Firefox I get the follwoing page:-

Referer Link Error

Weird, it worked on the first try with Mozilla 1.7.5. Besides, referrer blocking is stupid since the referrer can be changed so easily.

Re:Precedent:

[Luigi30]

Text files don't give ad impressions.

Re:Precedent:

[k96822]

This is just another example of some persuader-type's natural tendency to flat-out lie to hide their true agenda which, deep down, they know is offensive.

Re:Precedent:

[jp10558]

Interestingly enough, when I view the same link with Opera through proxomitron, I see the FAQ. I think it's thanks to the "Fake Referrer Header" filter.

anti-Phishing boilerplate?

[DingerX]

Dunno folks. It'd be interesting to see who they go after. I read that thing, and I wasn't thinking of Joe Sixpack linking to orbitz.com with a ilttle orbitz logo banner, but rather of someone ripping off their C/C page, with all the other links intact.
But heck, maybe that doesn't make any sense either.

Another possibility is someone slapping together a meta-airline search engine, that runs its own army of accounts and automatically sends requests to Orbitz, Travelocity, Expeida, Opopo (or whatever it is) at once, then returns the data
hey, you know, that sounds like a prtty good Firefox plugin...

Re:anti-Phishing boilerplate?

[mookoz]

There are many little-fish sites out there that scrape Orbitz and put up their own travel pages based on the data.

It would make sense that this policy is to combat the scraper accounts that are out there. Like any of these slashdot kids were actually shopping for overseas airline tickets and mailing links to each other. They're all busy trying to mod the textures on their copy of DOA for Xbox.

Re:anti-Phishing boilerplate?

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to work for orbitz, and the second possibility you described was a pretty common problem. A lot of other companies liked to scrape the Orbitz pages for fares. The company had deals with some of these companies, but not others.

Re:anti-Phishing boilerplate?

[tfoss]

Another possibility is someone slapping together a meta-airline search engine, that runs its own army of accounts and automatically sends requests to Orbitz, Travelocity, Expeida, Opopo (or whatever it is) at once, then returns the data

The great thing about these here internets, is that someone has almost always done it already.

-Ted

Just a small question?

[Radiate]

Is it legal to have TOS which are in violation with the constitution?

Re:Just a small question?

[Anita Coney]

In America we have "free speech zones" where protesters are locked-in and the press is forbidden to even take pictures of them, let alone talk with them.

So to answer your question, "yes."

Re:Just a small question?

[sqlrob]

If it's not a government site, yes.

Re:Just a small question?

[DavidTC]

The what? Why do you assume the US constitution applies to people located all over the world, in places as far-flung as New York and California?

Google

[Steamhead]

http://www.google.com/search?q=link:+http://www.or bitz.com/&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

I smell 46,600 lawsuits coming...

But seriously, this isn't even logical let alone enforceable, it will fail.

Re:Google

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, most of the top hits just link to the main website, so they're not deep links. However, the blackberry one appears to be so.

Re:Google

[porcupine8]

See, you're assuming that the people who wrote the TOS know how to do what you just did. I'm betting they don't, and the people at the company who do don't give a shit.

Re:Google

[Garve]

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&lr=&q=+site:w ww.orbitz.com+orbitz/

Google is breaking the T&Cs 130,000 times - perhaps we should inform them.

You know what the great thing is?

[Gareth Saxby]

If you don't sign up, you can do whatever the hell you want. I'm not planning on using the site anytime soon, being the fact that I don't use the services they provide, nor that of any other air travel services.

Being a minor does have it's advantages.

Re:You know what the great thing is?

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah! now you can link to them like a little bitch and they can't touch you! rock on! tard.

Re:You know what the great thing is?

[Gareth Saxby]

Why thankyou. I'll just make myself known on this: It is another example of certain people believing they can go that little bit further. While they aren't violating anyone's rights, it seems to be a major overreaction to some event we are missing out on, as I cannot see any viable trigger for a move like this.

I guess I should have said that to begin with... Heh.

Re:I guess this is Orbitz way ...

[thedustbustr]

Why don't you link us to tfa so we can decide for ourselves if Nelson acted inappropriately? Oh, sorry, I forgot that you were a troll.

Just a question.

[bicho]

Can they still link to search engines?

W3C say ...

[Anonymous Coward]

any attempt to forbid the practice of deep linking is based on a misunderstanding of the technology, and threatens to undermine the functioning of the Web as a whole

-- http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/deeplinking

Re:W3C say ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Perpahs but if they really want to get anal they can disallow any incoming connection that has a referer .. other than their own site/s.

Re:W3C say ...

[Anonymous Coward]

The analogies given there are particularly funny -- perhaps someone should show them to Orbitz.

Deep Linking by Analogy

Two analogies have been proposed to help illuminate the question of
deep linking through parallels in the real world.

The first analogy is with buildings, which typically have a number
of doors. A building might have a policy that the public may only
enter via the main front door, and only during normal working
hours. People employed in the building and in making deliveries to it
might use other doors as appropriate. Such a policy would be enforced
by a combination of security personnel and mechanical devices such as
locks and pass-cards. One would not enforce this policy by hiding some
of the building entrances, nor by requesting legislation requiring the
use of the front door and forbidding anyone to reveal the fact that
there are other doors to the building.

The second analogy is with a library, which has a well-known street
address. Each book on the shelves of this library also has an
identifier, composed of its title, author, call number, shelf
location, and so on. The library certainly will exercise access
control to the individual books; but it would be counterproductive to
do so by forbidding the publication of their identities.

Re:W3C say ...

[FlynnMP3]

Yeah. That's totally great that the W3C says that.

Here's a bit of a clue:

It is no longer an Internet that allows the free sharing of information. It has been changed by brute force of business to use it for whatever the heck they want. And the courts are saying, "Yep! Go ahead and do that!"

The golden age of the Internet has passed at least 5 years ago.

Maybe there is hope for I2.

Re:W3C say ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Given that deep linking can be easily foiled via many simple technical methods, the use of unenforceable legal twaddle obviously means that these guys aren't serious about it.

I mean, seriously. What makes them think that any of us have even read, let alone are bound by, their agreement?

FYI

[BoomerSooner]

It's still February.

Re:FYI

[Andy_R]

and that post will still be there in March!

Policy on linking

[Yankel]

Things are starting to make sense.

My employer now has a policy on linking from its internet and intranet site. This includes getting written permission from the destination site and a complex pile of forms.

The policy gets more complex if the destination site offers a product or service.

I thought it was ridiculous until I saw this post. There really are people out there that will try to sue you for linking to their website!

Why can't I direct a URL to any given piece of information that is freely available on the Internet (i.e. without a username and password)?

It's like handing someone a map to Wal-Mart, including directions to the bathroom -- and then being sued for showing them past the front door.

We wouldn't have much of this problem if ...

[Skapare]

We wouldn't have much of this problem if browsers didn't send the HTTP "Referer" header that gave away the URL that linked to them. So I say let's cut this header out. They don't need to be tracking where we have visited before, anyway. And besides, that header name is misspelled.

And while you're at it, cut out the HTTP "User-Agent" header. With web standards, there's no longer any need for this, either. That will stop the practice of favoring certain browsers.

Re:We wouldn't have much of this problem if ...

[blueforce]

You know.... as extreme as that sounds at first, the more I think about it the more reasonable it seems.

I second that.

Re:We wouldn't have much of this problem if ...

[HeghmoH]

It's not very hard to block external links even without the Referer header, this header just makes it slightly easier. Removing it won't do very much except force lazy web developers to expend a little more effort to stop customers from visiting their sites.

Re:We wouldn't have much of this problem if ...

[Mant]

Why? What harm does it do? I have no problems with a site putting up a techincal barrier to deep links (and you can do it without that info). It is doing nothing and saying to people, you can't link becuase we say so.

As for web standards, you must be kidding. Sure, things are better, and often you can check by object for JavaScript/DHTML which is better anyway. All the pages that didn't would break though, and sometimes browsers have nasty quirks and the best thing to do is try and spot them.

Re:We wouldn't have much of this problem if ...

[barzok]

Why? What harm does it do? I have no problems with a site putting up a techincal barrier to deep links (and you can do it without that info). It is doing nothing and saying to people, you can't link becuase we say so.

It sounds like this would also stop bookmarks from working. If your site doesn't let me bookmark a page for future reference, I won't be coming back because I refuse to have to dig through a site every time to get to the reference article I need.

Re:We wouldn't have much of this problem if ...

[shish]

We wouldn't have much of this problem if browsers didn't send the HTTP "Referer" header

Taking away the referer will stop lawyers doing stupid things? I think not. I've also found that the referer header is very useful - I can graph out how visitors to my sites move around, and optimise them to make the most looked for things the easiest to find.

And while you're at it, cut out the HTTP "User-Agent" header. With web standards, there's no longer any need for this, either. That will stop the practice of favoring certain browsers.

WTF? How? You think removing the user agent will force people to design to standards, just in case they're getting lots of variation in browsers that they can't see? Again, I think not. More likely would be that they'll design to work in IE, and have nothing to suggest that they should do otherwise.

Re:We wouldn't have much of this problem if ...

[enosys]

I don't think the the HTTP Referer header is going to go away. However, that shouldn't stop you. There are plenty of tools for spoofing that field. There is Spooph for IE on x86 and spooFXplorer for Firefox. You can also find a large collection of spoofs on that site, though they're all for porn.

Re:We wouldn't have much of this problem if ...

[m50d]

There's actually a good purpose for the User-Agent. It means sites can stop trying to send me that flash crap because I'm using links. More generally, it tells them not to sent plugin-requiring content unless the UA is Mozilla.

Re:We wouldn't have much of this problem if ...

[Skapare]

Actually, I hand edited the binary executable of Firefox to remove "Referer:" and "User-Agent:". Doing it via source would work as well. I've also done it in the Squid proxy.

If we start the campaign to depricate these headers, sure, there will still be plenty of browsers still using them for a long time. But, there will be fewer logged cases, and it will get smaller as the campaign progresses.

Look at the reasons these guys don't like deep linking. Basically they want to get you to look at their ads and special offers in the main page first, for the most part. They could easily implement technical measures to make deep linking ineffective ... just redirect back to the main page. No cookie? Redirect to the main page to get one. Offsite referrer? Redirect to the main page to see the special offers. But instead of doing these things, they get lawyers into the act. It's this kind of management level stupidity that I want to fight against. What I suggested just helps hides these things from them.

Re:We wouldn't have much of this problem if ...

[Skapare]

Bookmarks? That's so ... 20th century. This is now the 21st century. This is the age of ripping off content. Buy a diskdrive and download the article.

And don't get any ideas of ripping off this message to use as your signature.

Re:We wouldn't have much of this problem if ...

[Skapare]

If they want to put up a technical barrier, fine. Their site, their rules. In fact that is what I encourage them to do. It's the legal shit that has me offended. It's the fact that they don't bother to put up that technical barrier.

Re:We wouldn't have much of this problem if ...

[Skapare]

If they are going to go to the trouble of stopping deep linking, then I'd rather they give the work to a brother geek than to some slimey land shark.

Re:We wouldn't have much of this problem if ...

[Spy Hunter]

This would also help stop Google abuse. Right now, whenever somebody follows a link from Google, their search terms are sent to the site in the Referer header. This makes it easy for "Search Engine Optimizers" (more like search engine spammers) to figure out exactly which terms people are using in their searches, and what techniques people are using to try to filter out their spam in the search results. I think without this information the search engine spammers would be a lot less effective.

The Referer header is still useful in many situations; it is only a problem when people abuse it. I think the real solution is to add a new "ref" attribute to the HTML anchor tag. For example <a href="http://dontlinktous.com ref="http://bogusreferer.com">. This way the referer could continue to be useful for the majority of cases (statistics), but when it is abused it could easily be changed, and the abuse therefore thwarted.

Re:We wouldn't have much of this problem if ...

[Skapare]

You make a good point. This is in fact why I originally blocked "Referer". What I am looking at doing is making a hack to Squid to make the block conditional; let "Referer" pass only if it's the same hostname (or in a domain configured to allow it to pass).

Re:We wouldn't have much of this problem if ...

[Nermal6693]

WTF? How? You think removing the user agent will force people to design to standards, just in case they're getting lots of variation in browsers that they can't see? Again, I think not. More likely would be that they'll design to work in IE, and have nothing to suggest that they should do otherwise.

It'll get rid of the problem where sites say 'you're not running IE, so I'm not going to let you in!'

Re:We wouldn't have much of this problem if ...

[shish]

So they'll be forced to let you in; it won't mean they'll work in non-ie browsers though :P

Re:We wouldn't have much of this problem if ...

[42forty-two42]

Actually, I hand edited the binary executable of Firefox to remove "Referer:" and "User-Agent:". Doing it via source would work as well. I've also done it in the Squid proxy.

You know, it's so much easier to open about:config and: network.http.sendRefererHeader = 0

Re:We wouldn't have much of this problem if ...

[Skapare]

Except for the fact that it would not save the configuration change permanently when working with multiple instances. Fixing that was on my todo list somewhere. I guess it got pushed way down the stack. I'll get to that some day.

Re:We wouldn't have much of this problem if ...

[Nermal6693]

Right now there are a lot of sites out there which work perfectly in Firefox and Safari if you set the user agent to IE. So it's not the browser that's at fault, it's just the server not letting you in.

It's just bidzness.

[Pig Hogger]

It's just plain etikul bidzness.

You write whatever you want on a sheet of paper, pass it for a contract, and hope that suckers will fall for it.

Aren't programmers cheaper than lawyers?

[ScentCone]

404 handlers, redirectors, simple scripts to handle referals you'd like to see land in a different spot... these are all child's play. The billed man-hours of lawyer time that this has already (and WILL) cost them must eclipse (by orders of magnitude) what a technical solution would have cost. They'll deserve all of the traffic they lose because of this, and serves them right. Let the web foot-traffic market show them the foolishness of this approach. This is not exactly proactively leveraging networked synergy, now, is it.

They haven't honored deals for deep-linkers

[Anonymous Coward]

This news is unsurprising. On a number of occasions, they've had some promotion that they've emailed to some select members. The terms and conditions of the promotion don't state that it is only good for these members. These deals then find their way onto deal sites & people who didn't get the original email were denied the promotion. They've done this a few times & received numerous complaints.

Linking is Illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

Linking to something illegal is illegal as you are an accesory.
This is how they take down torrent aggregators.
And why you should never direct people to crack houses.
Soon it will be illegal to even have a finger that could point to a crack house as that could induce pointing.
Just as in Manilla it is not permissible to have blank media, 'just in case' it has copyright infringing content.http://www.boingboing.net/2005/02/13/manil a_transit_cops_.html
Or Norway where they are just about to make the file format MP3 illegal.http://www.engadget.com/entry/123400060003 1289/
All this was predicted by Socrates and Plato back in the day when they railed against Sophistry or the practice of charging for information.

Google BombTime!

[dkh2]

It's Google Bomb time! Like they can stop me from linking to them. As if they can stop me from linking to something other than their home page.

It's time to start linking to "Orbitz stupid license" from everywhere you can!

Re:Google BombTime!

[Anonymous Coward]

The other option is to start requesting links by contacting customerservice. Let's slashdot their customer service. Everybody send customerservice@you_know_where an email requesting permission to setup links to their site. If everybody requests 100 separate links, there's no way they could keep up with the requests. They can't accept all requests, but they can't stop accepting requests from real websites. I wouldn't suggest anybody actually putting up those links, so that their search engine ranking doesn't go up.

This is too bad...

[EmagGeek]

I use Orbitz all the time, and I have generally had good experiences with them. In fact, I used them the other day to book a trip to Phoenix. It's too bad these new terms are so restrictive.

Re:This is too bad...

[mithras the prophet]

I just sent them this email:

To: customerservice@orbitz.com
From: <me>
Subject: request
Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2005 09:02:46 -0500

Hello,

I am an Orbitz member. I would like to include a link to the Orbitz
homepage in a text email to two members of my family. Per the new
Orbitz Terms & Conditions, I hereby request permission to include such
a link in an email to be sent March 12, 2005.

If possible I would also like to secure a standing agreement permitting
me to include text links to the Orbitz homepage in future emails,
including but not limited to two such emails I intend to send in the
month of April.

Finally, because some of my friends and family are not yet Orbitz
members, I request a "separate linking agreement" between Orbitz and my
fucking email outbox, so that I may direct such persons to the Orbitz
registration page at:
https://www.orbitz.com/Secure/ViewNewMemberRe g?
z=e57r&r=d&signInType=explicit

Thank you for your attention.
Sincerely,
Me

Re:This is too bad...

[Peyna]

You might have a good idea here; the best thing to do is to use their system against them. So they want us to get permission everytime we link? Then do it. Every possible chance you get. Eventually it will get to the point that they might realize it was a bad idea and modify their statement.

I imagine their goal was to stop robots from other sites grabbing their prices and using them to make money of their own rather than to prevent the casual user from linking to Orbitz.

Re:This is too bad...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well my email was something like this:

To: customerservice@orbitz.com
From:
Subject: Request for deep linking
Date:

Hello,

r.e. Your retarded policy on deep linking.

Please get a fucking clue you fucking retards.

You may now suck my cock.

Thankyou.

Re:This is too bad...

[Eric Savage]

Well, it would appear that if they deny your eloquent request you just have to use http://www.orbitz-sucks.com which might not be covered under the TOS:

"Site" means the www.orbitz.com website and/or the www.orbitzforbusiness.com website, and their respective subsites, together with the respective Content, Marks, Products and Services available from these sites and subsites.

Re:This is too bad...

[QuantumFTL]

Well, it would appear that if they deny your eloquent request you just have to use http://www.orbitz-sucks.com which might not be covered under the TOS.

Am I the only person who finds it ironic that you have to use orbitz-sucks.com, because orbitz sucks?
*grin*

Re:This is too bad...

[Anonymous Coward]

I sent one to them too; let them feel the pain of paying customer service people overtime. Oh, and here's a little addendum at the bottom...

"This email is strictly confidentional. Any use of e-mail addresses
collected from this email body and/or headers, other than supplying
a legal response to the email message above, including but not limited
to sending advertisement, sharing it with third parties, or adding to
any mailing lists, is strictly prohibited and may result in financial
charges. By not answering within 10 business days or otherwise ignoring
this email, you explicitly agree to grant the permissions requested
in the body of this email and not press any charges against the person
requsting such permission by it, or his legal affiliates."

I just saw their website for the first time...

[bgarcia]

I just now visited their website for the first time since it was no longer a website for some failed carbonated beverage, and this is what firefox told me:

Firefox prevented this site from opening 2 popup windows. Click here for options...

It's bad enough that websites have popups at all, but what stupid web developer thinks it's a good idea to pop up TWO windows with one visit???

The Future

[nurb432]

How about we look towards the day when this DOES happen.. Between this sort of garbage and the governments controlling content ( like the Nazi issues with google ) the 'web' is toast..

Oh, dont forget the attack on p2p technology .. and the constant barrage of spam.. and viruses... and restrictive patenting everything under the sun.. ( hmm i claim rights for the sun.. )

Its a matter of time.. Enjoy it while you can.

Re:The Future

[k96822]

Oh crap, now I have to pay you royalties every time I go outside! Oh wait, I live in Wisconsin. Nevermind.

Re:The Future

[Jedi Alec]

and restrictive patenting everything under the sun.. ( hmm i claim rights for the sun.. )

Fine, I don't wish to use it anyway, big scary yellow thing. Please remove it.

"Don't Link to Us!"

[geegs]

Although no longer updated, David E Sorkin's Don't Link to Us! page is still relevant.

A page like that could be useful for shaming companies into improving their linking policies.

Re:"Don't Link to Us!"

[Anonymous Coward]

Although no longer updated, David E Sorkin's Don't Link to Us! page is still relevant.

A page like that could be useful for shaming companies into improving their linking policies.

And funnily enough, Orbitz also appear on that page too (an incident in 2002).

It appears that they are slow learners. Or just plain retarded.

Re:"Don't Link to Us!"

[lrucker]

scribeoz.com, a fanfic site, is using the referrer tags to detect anything coming from several LJ communities devoted to mocking bad fanfic. If you come from the wrong place, instead of seeing the story you see this:

You are receiving this message as you have been identified as possibly engaging in the act of unfairly criticising an author and are thus banned from reading stories on this site. This ban will remain for a period of seven days - repeat offenders will be banned permanently.

To see it in action, go here and click the "Ban Me Harder" link. Of course everyone figured out that just typing the url in bypassed this.

Not Such A Big Deal(?)

[JamieKitson]

What's the big deal? Sounds like they're just covering themselves like any other body might. From TFA:

Inbound Links

We welcome links from a third party site to the home page of our Site, through a plain text link, provided that (a) you give Orbitz prior written notice of such link by contacting Orbitz Customer Service, to request Orbitz's permission to establish the link; (b) you discontinue providing a link to our Site if so requested by Orbitz; (c) you do not imply in any fashion that Orbitz is endorsing any of your products or service or is affiliated with you, (d) you do not present Orbitz in a false light, or provide misleading or false information about Orbitz, or its Site or Services, (e) you do not remove or obscure the copyright notices, or other notices on this Site; (f) you do not use any Mark of Orbitz; and (g) you do not replicate, frame or mirror the content of the Site.

We reserve the right to require you to remove links to the Site, in our sole discretion.

Linking to any page of the Site other than to the homepage is strictly prohibited in the absence of a separate linking agreement with Orbitz.

Groklaw does not allow deep linking ....

[Anonymous Coward]

therefore they must be evil!!

Re:MOD PARENT DOWN

[tomhudson]

Hey dude, Orbitz is saying that they have the right to ask you to modify YOUR OWN posts, no deep linking, not even a plain-text link. Or did you fail to read the article?

As to the rest, damn straight. This is something that affects everyone's rights. Nelson's brainfart was an insult to a lot of people, his later "withdrawal" and backdating of it to 4 years ago, to make it look like it didn't just happen a week ago, is dishonest. It discredits everyone associated with open source.

Google

[bigmouth_strikes]

Does that mean that Google must remove links to Orbitz in their search results ?

I'm not sure that they thought this one through....

Orbitz and tech relevance

[behindthewall]

Paul Graham has written about Orbitz. I can't find the essay that I particularly remember and which provides more of a business context (better model blows away competitors' development/business cycles). But here's one with some technical details about what's behind Orbtiz and its success.

http://www.paulgraham.com/carl.html

I've used them, and I found their product to do a very good job without getting in my way. And it did this several years ago, when competitors were still, in terms of a polished product, in diapers.

I don't know what's going on with the company these days, but the original founders (still there?) were anything but dumb. Makes me wonder what their real concerns are with regard to deep linking. When smart people act, you pay attention and ask why.

Re:Orbitz and tech relevance

[behindthewall]

Hmm, having just eaten my own dogfood (link above), I'm left wondering at the division between Orbitz and ITA and where the smartness resided and now resides.

Regardless, Orbitz brought interaction with ITA's stuff to my attention. Orbitz seemed like a "good thing". If it's crawling into bureaucratic morbidity, I guess I for one at least am interested. The old "tech vs. turkey" situation, where one wonders whether brains get buried by short-sighted cost/benefit analyses (cost/benefit can be good, but scope is an important factor in destermining this).

Changing TOS and Privacy Policy...

[jimmyswimmy]

It frustrates me no end that companies keep on changing their TOS and privacy policies. As a person whose free time keeps getting sucked up by Slashdot, I really haven't the time or interest in reviewing every little change a lawyer wants to make in these documents.

And besides, how much do I need to use Orbitz? I don't find cheaper tickets there. I can always go straight to the airline, and if I really don't want to deal with a TOS, I can call them up myself or get a travel agent to do it. Hell, the last time I booked a flight for personal travel, my agent found me tickets that were about $100 cheaper each than the best I could find online.

So nuts to Orbitz. They can go suck eggs.

Re:Changing TOS and Privacy Policy...

[Peyna]

reviewing every little change a lawyer wants to make in these documents.

A lawyer does what the client wants. Or at least, is supposed to.

Blaming the lawyer for the client's policy is like blaming the cashier at Wal-Mart for the company's policies.

Re:Changing TOS and Privacy Policy...

[Tassach]

A lawyer does what the client wants. Or at least, is supposed to.

No, a lawyer is supposed to act in his client's best interest, which is not always the same as doing what he wants.

Re:Changing TOS and Privacy Policy...

[Peyna]

Yeah, I figured that was pretty much implied. Anyway, the point is that the lawyer does not tell them WHAT to do, he tells them how. At least, that's how it should be in most cases. The OP was simply trying to take a quick stab at lawyers, when more than likely someone at Orbitz said "hey, we should stop people linking to us from these sites because they hurt our business in some way." Then the lawyer said, "Well, we would have all of our customers agree to this terms of service stating that they won't link, because it's going to be real difficult to enforce otherwise, etc."

But the lawyer's job is never to make decisions for the client, it is to advise the client in their decisions.

Re:Changing TOS and Privacy Policy...

[jimmyswimmy]

Okay, now we're really niggling.

For whatever it's worth, I blame Orbitz entirely, hoping that they don't pay outside counsel to write these awful things. I ASSume that the TOS and privacy policy are written by in-house marketing weenies and approved by their general counsel.

And you hit the nail on the head about Wal-mart. That's actually what I hate most about dealing with big companies - when someone really fucks up, who do you yell at? The poor clerk? No, and you can never find the guy who's really at fault.

By this point, I deserve a serious -1 Offtopic.

Re:I guess this is Orbitz way ...

[tomhudson]

Your wish is my command: here, follow the links for the original text he published on February 7th, the modifications he made, then the withdrawal of the article and the backdating of it to January 1st 2001.

Also, you might want to verify it by looking in Google's cache - they have a copy of the modified post.

The original post, dated February 7th, 2005, is reproduced below in it's entirety, for those too lazy to click:

angry-economist.russnelson.com/blacks_are_lazy.htm l

The economist is here, and boy is he pissed.

Mon, 07 Feb 2005

Blacks are lazy

Black people are lazy in that they work less hard than whites. Not only that, but they are rational to be lazy! After black slaves were freed, they worked less. The value of their leisure time (highly valued after a lifetime of slavery) exceeded the pay from their work. Also, ongoing American racism has caused blacks to be paid less than whites. If everything else is the same, a black person is less likely to want to work as hard as a white person. I think that is what led people into the mistaken idea that blacks are lazy--as a characteristic of being black. They're not; it's an economically-ignorant idea to say that they are. They're just rationally valuing their leisure time at the same rate as whites, getting paid less for the same work, and deciding to work less because of it.

Actually, come to think about it, we had about 150 years of black slavery, and it hasn't even been 150 years since the Civil War. It wouldn't surprise me to find that blacks are still taught to value their leisure time more highly than whites. When their forebears were slaves, their leisure time was very precious to them. Cultures change slowly.

And no, this isn't Troll Tuesday.

Why not complain to them...

[luckytroll]

I just filled in their "Customer response" weblet, and told them that their site was unuseable because it contradicts the spirit and underlying form of the WWW. Enough of us drop in and tell them their site stinks - well, the /. effect might just show them that a lot of people are reading their TOS and are voting with their feet.

This means no more Orbitz links on FARK!

[Anonymous Coward]

No more of the Orbitz news items, the Orbitz Photoshops, and the famed Orbitz boobies!

No links at all

[PhilHibbs]

From their terms page:

"You agree not to create a link from any Web site, including any site controlled by you, to our site."

I have not agreed to their terms, so I think I can post this link legally:

Orbitz

Ha ha, screw you you fascists!

Re:No links at all

[PhilHibbs]

That's their current terms, so the March 12th terms will in fact be more lenient. This story should be "Orbitz relaxes linking restrictions".

I don't get it

[slapout]

Shouldn't all their "deep links" be generated on the fly anyway? And why wouldn't they want all the links to the frontpage that they could get?

It doesn't matter what they say about you as long as they spell your url right. :-)

Its reverse psychology!

[Anonymous Coward]

They WANT you to link to their site, but why would you do that? No reason, so they dare you not to!

Don't fall for it!

Hey, Orbitz!

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck you!

They need to read the Ticketmaster case

[unassimilatible]

Deep Link Away.

Or maybe, Legality of 'Deep Linking' Remains Deeply Complicated

BTW, anyone who reads this post owes me $20, that's my TOS.

Re:They need to read the Ticketmaster case

[phats garage]

If you don't want folks deep linking your site, check the referrer and act accordingly.

Re:They need to read the Ticketmaster case

[stoutstreet]

that is NOT the way to get rich here

Re:They need to read the Ticketmaster case

[Alzheimers]

BTW, anyone who reads this post owes me $20, that's my TOS.

That's okay, I'll just subtract it from the $350 "Proofreading Fee" you owe me for reading your post.

Re:They need to read the Ticketmaster case

[Atragon]

BTW, anyone who reads this post owes me $20, that's my TOS.

That's okay, I'll just subtract it from the $350 "Proofreading Fee" you owe me for reading your post.

And you both owe me a $699 reviewer fee for forming an opinion of your posts.

Re:They need to read the Ticketmaster case

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll note that eBay is allowing various and sundry folks to claim "copyright violation" and turn off sales of their products through the VERO program on eBay. Check it out. Folks like Soundcraft and Crutchfield who don't want a used market for their equipment kill used sales by claiming that any picture of their equipment is "copyright infringement" whether it's deep linked to them, or anyone else. And if you link to their manuals, Oi!

Re:They need to read the Ticketmaster case

[Anonymous Coward]

"And you both owe me a $699 reviewer fee for forming an opinion of your posts."

You forgot the opinion.

Re:They need to read the Ticketmaster case

[Anonymous Coward]

Publishing the opinion is extra.

Re:They need to read the Ticketmaster case

[SlartibartfastJunior]

Orbitz Low Fare Promise If you book an airline ticket on Orbitz.com and then find a lower airfare for the same flights, dates, airline and travelers on another Web site, you may be entitled to a $50 coupon per ticket toward your next Orbitz purchase. * The fare must be at least $5 less per ticket than the airfare purchased on Orbitz.com. * The lower total airfare may not include Web site service, booking, processing, shipping, paper-ticket or other fees. ********* You must provide the complete Web address (URL) where you found the lower airfare. SO . . . they want you to deep-link to someone else's site, but not to theirs?

Oh no...

[Fizzl]

Guess I shouldn't be doing this:
Retarded terms and conditions.

Baffling stupidity

[1rabella]

I honestly don't understand where this type of idiocy comes from. Misguided self-interest? How does it even serve them? It frequently seems to me that those of us that work towards, at least in some small way, fulfilling the promise of the Web to connect and share knowledge are constantly fighting efforts to cripple it.

I'm an editor on Whatis.com. Our mandate has always been to provide readers with the best information we could find, whether it comes from one of our sister sites or a competitor. Naively, we assumed that competitors would appreciate being linked to, as we do. In the past couple of years, a number of the larger online media organizations have ordered us to stop linking to their content, I suppose on the premise that without their deathless prose we would shrivel up and blow away. Hasn't happened yet ;-)

Keep fighting the good fight!

Re:Baffling stupidity

[Stumbles]

Yes it is simple stupidity. Alright who to my precious..... IP!

Cache of links

[BobPaul]

Someone should maintain a cache of links to the Orbitz site. Just a list in an html with all of the non-member accessible URIs you can find.

Since non-members aren't bound by this agreement, it'd be interesting to see what actions (if any) they would take. ;)

Re:Cache of links

[nacturation]

Someone should maintain a cache of links to the Orbitz site. Just a list in an html with all of the non-member accessible URIs you can find.

Better yet, setup a site such as orbitzlink.com where members can enter deep links and the site then creates an intermediate link, similar to tinyurl.com or the amusingly named makeashorterlink.com. It's only a database lookup and a redirect so the traffic and load would be minimal.

Oh, let's obey!

[Vo0k]

Make the links to the site vanish. Everywhere. Ever. Especially search engines should exclude the site from its searches. Remove it from directories, portals, private pages...
Let's see how long a site nobody links to can exist...

Not the first or last idiot to do this

[Anonymous Coward]

See for many other examples http://www.dontlink.com/ (last updated in 2002).

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Orbits?

[grikdog]

As in, "our orbit is decaying and we're going to crash into the Sun"? Peculiar. Seriously, what's an Orbitz? Does it matter?

Simple Solution

[smagruder]

Switch to Tribe.net.

2 edge blade

[dindi]

First I thought the beauty of the net was to follow links, to get deeper and deeper, to seek more info to

Then I realised that some of my sites are penalized by search engines because people add my sites to link farms and send the typical "i added your beautiful site to my homepage where i sell viagra, please put my link whereever and reply" mail arrives and makes me MAD ....

so if it is a SEO reason i can partly understand them, if it is not then DO NOT RUN a SITE if you do not want links pointing at you.

other solution: if $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'] is outta your domain/site ----> exit|errormessage|whatever U want

Or maybe they cannot restrict access to (supposedly) password protected areas so they tell the user not to bring links to the site ?

makes me wonder ....

Easily prevent deep linking

[Anonymous Coward]

1. You generate your site using a publishing engine, right?

2. Put a filter (in Servlets, or whatever your equivilent technology might be) in front of your publishing engine.

3. Create a database table: (id, url, ip, expires)

4. When serving a page, parse out urls, put them in to the table.

5. When checking an incoming HTTP request, look it up in the table and check the details.

Voila, IP locked individualised links with expiry times you can sweep at your leisure, turning all your normal looking links in to http://website/go?10few88jhdbhgru88 and equivilent gibberish.

Problem solved.

Hmmm.

[dentar]

This is completely retarded. Just because their users agree to not link deeply does not meant that -I- agree to it, and I sure didn't click or agree to anything. They'll have to start suing.

The meaning of 'or'

[The Monster]

Can't their web server just reject or redirect any page requests that don't have a referrer field of their own web site?

Of course they can. But how in hell will they ever see another new customer via the internet again?

Not to put words in the grandparent's mouth, but I think 'or redirect' might just mean that if you want to connect to orbitz.com/very/deep/link from outside of orbitz.com, you get something else, like the orbitz.com front page instead.

It's not really difficult to go beyond this simple binary rule, and have a list of domains from which linking is allowed to any particular page other than the home page.

But by their own rules, they wouldn't even get the chance to redirect the evil links. To paraphrase Barbara Billingsley in Airplane:

Chump don't want no traffic?
Chump don't get no traffic!

Lack of understanding

[The Cisco Kid]

The problem is that lots of PHB's that make these types of decisions dont quite understand what 'linking' means, perhaps they think it means that the other site is somehow connecting to their site, using its resources, copying its information.

A better analogy would be that linking is like giving out a phone number. What company would *NOT* want its phone number (at least their public one that they expect potential customers, investors, etc to call) given out?

Now I can see perhaps they wouldnt necesarrily want their internal extensions given out, but not even the stupident PHB would beleive that there was any legal precedent allowing his company to prohibit someone, having obtained a private exetnsion, from telling it to anyone they damn well want to.

Whats even funnier, is why they feel the need to put this in a T&C, or think that the T&C binds anyone who hasnt specifically arranged for services (eg signed up, etc). If I had a site, and I didnt want external sites to link to my internal pages, I'd take 2 minutes and throw together a restriction on referrer for those pages (perhaps redirecting to the 'main' page of my site, or if I wanted to be an ass about it, redirecting back to the referring page) . No chest pounding, no legal gobbledygook, just a glance at the logs and a smirk at anyone trying. (And yes, I know referer can be faked, but only bu the user controlling the browser/http client - not by a site publishing links for joe-average-enduser to click on.

Re:I guess this is Orbitz way ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a quick question for you Tom - is it possible that you are assuming the article is racist simply because you're too fucking stupid and politically correct to actually read it?

If you can't handle reading it all the way through, let's take some bite sized excerpts (hopefully small enough for the American mind to digest) :

ongoing American racism has caused blacks to be paid less than whites

I think that is what led people into the mistaken idea that blacks are lazy

They're just rationally valuing their leisure time at the same rate as whites, getting paid less for the same work, and deciding to work less because of it

Yes, it's a contraversial view but I don't see obvious racism. I thing it's just too much for your fragile little mind to take in.

Isn't a technical solution easier?

[moz25]

It has been mentioned that deep linking can be relatively easily detected using the "referer" information. Doesn't it make more sense to use exactly that information to block access or redirect it to the main page?

Rewording their policy

[HangingChad]

"Since we are totally ignorant about how to stop people from deep linking to our site, we're simply going to state, very plainly, that it's illegal and you can't do it. You agree to be bound by this legal fabrication because most people don't have a clue we're making this up and it would probably get tossed out of any court in any state outside Utah or Alabama. Therefore this agreement is bound by the laws of Utah and Alabama. But not all of them, only the laws we like."

Hi!

[Nolkyan]

Greetings. You have violated the Orbitz terms and conditions. Please remove his post immediately or face monkeys. Thousands of them. Love, Orbitz.

nothing new there...

[munkt0n]

http://www.sellotape.com/copyright.htm oops, another rule broken...

Not enforceable

[qwp]

This seams like a good fluff by orbitz.
I doubt we will ever see it hit the edges of a court. There is no way you can restrict peoples' ability to link.

Sue Google to get links

[dasalvagg]

Just wait till they sue google to find every person that is linking to them. We've seen a worm that uses google to do its dirty work, why not lawyers....

Obviously...

[rnturn]

... prohibitions against deep-linking are permitted by the DMCA, right?

Is there an analysis of their reasoning for this policy anywhere? (I'm assuming that reason played a part in its being put into place. And, yes, I know all about ``assuming''.) I'm guessing that they're finding out that brokering cheap airfares isn't the huge moneymaker that it used to be and they're ticked off that deep-linking is eating into the advertising views that they get when you come in only through their home page. My heart (sniff) bleeds for them.

Better ask 2600

[goombah99]

"Are they going to sue you for linking to them? "

Yeah they just might sue you. Ask the folks at hacker mag 2600. they got busted for linking to copies of the dvd decryption programs. not for hosting but just linking.

Here's why Orbitz has this silly policy

[Anonymous Coward]

My guess is that they are trying to ward off "screen scraping aggregator" sites. These sites offer comparisons of fares between city pairs, and then offer to book the flight for you for a small fee.

Typical "screen scrapers"

• QIXO
• Sidestep

They do all this by deep linking and parsing web sites of airlines and sites like Orbitz.

This is objectionable to airlines and Orbitz for many reasons:

• These aggregators skip important and/or legally required information, such as passenger facility charges, disclaimers, etc.
• They also tend to "hide" the service they charge, making the fare seem higher than it actually is.
• Many times, their screen scraping code is buggy, and shows fares incorrectly higher or lower
• Probably most importantly, they end up controlling the "user experience", which means the "scraped" web site can't offer add-ons like car rentals and hotels.

Basically, it boils down to a general objection to being used a distribution system for a travel agent without having any control over the terms and conditions of said use.

If they don't have a posted policy, it makes it more difficult to use legal action against operators that screen scrape.

Re:Here's why Orbitz has this silly policy

[DavidTC]

None of that appears to need to be remedied by this policy.

The first one: Well, obviously, the FAA should fine them. If it's legally required, than how are they getting away with not showing it?

For the second...um, duh. So? If they show higher fares, it seems silly to assume that people would use them. OTOH, if they're showing a higher fare and attributing it to Orbitz, Orbitz needs to sue them...that's libel, especially if done delibrately to hide fees.

As for the third...I already said what Orbitz should do about a higher fare. For an incorrect lower fare...well, Orbitz should wander in, purchase eight billion of their tickets though the interface, paying the incorrect lower price and causing them to purchase them at the real price, instantly bankrupting the scapers. And then return the tickets to themselves to sell again.

As for the last...tough beans. Just because you sell a produce doesn't mean you can always control how said product is purchased.

Re:Here's why Orbitz has this silly policy

[Luv2Sin]

By why take it to the extreme to ban plaintext linking? I don't see the connection...

Re:Here's why Orbitz has this silly policy

[Anonymous Coward]

"For the second...um, duh. So? If they show higher fares, it seems silly to assume that people would use them. OTOH, if they're showing a higher fare and attributing it to Orbitz, Orbitz needs to sue them...that's libel, especially if done delibrately to hide fees."

Typically, the interface shows the incorrect fare, but errors out at purchase time. This, of course, loses the sale for both the aggregator and the airline/Orbitz. Bad Customer Service, and the real site operator has no control over the user experience.

"As for the last...tough beans. Just because you sell a produce doesn't mean you can always control how said product is purchased."

Um, no. That's the whole point...this type of thing wasn't really possible before the advent of the www. Buying a SABRE terminal set required signing a contract that controlled the terms. So, again, Orbitz went overboard, but they are trying to instill some rules that allow them to restrict use of the site to their terms.

Isn't Orbitz Owned by Microsoft?

[Anonymous Coward]

I like travelocity, who are they owned by?

Re:Isn't Orbitz Owned by Microsoft?

[Anonymous Coward]

Orbitz is owned by a group of 5 major airlines:

• American
• Continental
• Delta
• Northwest
• United

Travelocity is a SABRE company. Expedia is the Microsoft controlled travel site.

Re:Isn't Orbitz Owned by Microsoft?

[brickbat]

Orbitz is no longer owned by the airline consortium; it was bought by Cendant Corporation in October of last year.

Bibliography References?

[clickster]

What is the difference between deep linking and quoting someone else's written work in your own? As long as they get credited, you can do it. I understand that there are advertisements on Orbitz's website and that they need people to see them so that they can make money, but come on.

If that is their argument, then I pose the following:
Could I publish a book that had ad space in it and then disallow references to it? (I'm not asking if this is legally feasible, since there is more than enough legal history to strike down any such attempt. I am simply asking if that would be a valid comparison.

Orbitz can suck my danglybitz

[Dogtanian]

You mean this link:- http://www.orbitz.com/robots.txt?

Afraid they can't sue me for that. I've never visited their site (except for pop up ads which I didn't give permission for), so I haven't agreed to their silly EULA.

That was so much fun, I think I'll do it again. http://www.orbitz.com/robots.txt !!! http://www.orbitz.com/robots.txt !!! http://www.orbitz.com/robots.txt !!!

Neh neh nyeah-nyeah neh! :-P

Public website is like a shop, not a house

[Dogtanian]

It's my website. Legally, and morally, you have no right to use it, any more than you have the right to use my toilet if I leave my house unlocked.

Bad analogy; even if your right to stop people visiting is enforcable, it's not like leaving your house open.

The computer equivalent to that would be exploiting a security hole to gain access to a system that clearly wasn't intended for public use.

Your website is more like a shop, in that if it's publicly accessible and the doors are open, permission is implicitly being granted for people to come in, look around, and even look at stuff. Of course, you can hang a sign on the door in a prominent position detailing conditions for use of the shop. However, a publicly accessible website, even with restrictive conditions, is still more like a shop than a house.

Re:Public website is like a shop, not a house

[gowen]

Thank you.

I consider my bad analogy greatly improved upon.

regarding "rights"

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure many of us realise how vague people are about "rights" and the meaning of the words "rights" and "right". I agree with

If you don't like their terms, don't use their service.

but I don't agree with

This has nothing to do with "rights".

Notice in section 6 of the T&C for orbitz,

We welcome links from a third party site to the home page of our Site, through a plain text link, provided that ... [excessive terms people are complaining about].

But more offensively, I think, follows this,

We reserve the right to require you to remove links to the Site, in our sole discretion.

"They" have the "right" to require that "I" remove links to "the Site". They say they can require me to remove links to their site, but it doesn't seem clear whether "you" refers to an actual user of the site, or any person at all who fancies linking to their site, even without actually visiting it themselves.

Also, what is this magic "right" they have to require people to remove links to their site? I didn't know I had that "right". Perhaps I don't have that "right", but they do, since they hire lawyers who write contracts and create whatever messy legalise they please.

I think when contracts are interpreted by a court (as necessary), the misleading parts which seek to confuse important principles, such as the rights of every individual in a free society, should harshly count against the party responsible for those parts. If it was not beneficial, or even detrimental, for companies to redefine and obscure important legal principles, then I'm sure the problems we have now with legalise would be greatly reduced.

GrimRC

No more hits on google!!

[jedi_gras]

Well, if I remember correctly, doesn't google rank pages based on referring links? If everyone takes down their Orbitz links, then I would probably guess that Orbitz.com would slowly sink into the depths of google's page ranks.

What do you think?

Fun with Google Bomb!

[Anonymous Coward]

Say it with me, all together now: Shitty travel site. If enough of you say it with me, we can make it true!

So what

[null etc.]

What happens if you violate the terms and conditions by deep linking into their site? They terminate your account and you can't give your money to them? OH well. Problem self-solved.

wrong technology

[EXTmilky]

If they don't want to get linked at all, they should switch from HTML to PDF or publish all pages in a single MSWord document. That's it.

The WWW was designed to allow for links from one document to the other. It is neither possible nor netiquette to prohibite that. Dumb bitches.

Re:wrong technology

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly... get the hell off the WEB.

Re:MOD PARENT DOWN

[Vacindak]

And if it's a cause worth pursuing, then what?

At worst it makes him off-topic, at best it's informative, because I'm sure there are plenty of people who would be concerned by Russ Nelson's statement that would otherwise not be aware of the issue.

In any case, this is quickly moving off-topic as well, so let's all shut up, shall we?

Build a better mousetrap...

[Luv2Sin]

... they'll invent a smarter mouse. Now people will just be sure to deep link through a proxy server. Problem not at all resolved. When are lawyers going to realize that they are usually out of their element in situations like this? I keep picturing the one guy down in IT, who got into work this morning to find this huge announcement crawling into the fetal position uttering HTTP_REFERER.. HTTP_REFERER...

Google, other search engines would go down

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can't deeplink/hyperlink.... how can you run a search engine?

All the more reason..

[Anonymous Coward]

.. to use a different company to find flight prices.

Say, one that's run by the little guy:

Travelaxe

Re:I guess this is Orbitz way ...

[tomhudson]

This statement:

If everything else is the same, a black person is less likely to want to work as hard as a white person

... makes a claim that has nothing to do with pay (that's what "everything else is the same" means - you control for those factors). To say that 2 people, 1 whate, one black, both making the same money, and yet claim "a black person is less likely to want to work as hard" is racist.

404's...

[AyeRoxor!]

I've always wondered if 404's count as a deep link.

Look at me orbitz!!!

http://www.orbitz.com/global/I'm%20deep%20linking!

I'll expect my summons in the mail.

Terms of WWW?

[Easybake]

There should be an OSS-style license agreement for websites connecting to the public Internet. The whole point of the Web is to hyperlink to offsite documents. No company should be allowed to make such restrictions.

Re:Terms of WWW?

[Big_Al_B]

Where is this "public Internet" of which you speak? I'm only familiar with the usual one where independent, often private, entities make contractual arrangements with other entities to peer or purchase IP transit and various application services, over privately owned or leased circuits.

The Internet is public like a shopping mall is public, not like a city park is public.

BTW, who would you have enforce this license of yours?

Copyright infringement?

[scovetta]

Ok, don't kill me for this, it's just an idea... Could Orbitz claim that their URLs are their intellectual property, and forbid anyone else from using that property (unless they follow the rules)? Could you call deep-linking (or linking in general) "plagarism", since you're copying someone's location word-for-word?

I think it'd be total crap if this *could* work, but I'm just not surprised anymore about the screwed up laws concerning IP.

Re:Copyright infringement?

[iamwahoo2]

I believe someone has tried to claim it as trademark before and failed. It is simply not practical to allow someone to prevent this on the internet and could potentially be a freedom of speach issue. Consider a journalist writing about a company and wanting to include a link to that company.

Re:Copyright infringement?

[Alsee]

Could Orbitz claim that their URLs are their intellectual property, and forbid anyone else from using that property

Which makes absolutely no sense because there is no such legal entity as "Intellectual Property".

Perhaps you meant to sugest that theur URLs were copyrighted?
Perhaps you meant to sugest that theur URLs were patented?
Perhaps you meant to sugest that theur URLs were trade secrets?
Perhaps you meant to sugest that theur URLs were trademarks?

Well copyright fails because a URL is a peice of factual information, just like some street address. You cannot copyright factual information. So that doesn't work.
Patents fail because, well, a URL isn't an invention. So that doesn't work.
Trade secrets doesn't work because the moment they allow members of the public to ever see the URL is ceases to be a trade secret. So that doesn't work.
Trademark doesn't work because by using the URL you are not deceptively engaging in commerce under that trademark or otherwise confusing the public. So that doesn't work.

Intellectual Property is a really really rotten term. In any discussion using the term Intellectual Property the probably of someone missunderstanding the law rapidly aproaches 1.

-

Re:Copyright infringement?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dunno about US of A, but around here anything as obvious as an url doesn't qualify as a 'work' in the copyright sense..

Re:Copyright infringement?

[nospmiS remoH]

Breakin the law!
Breakin the law!
Breakin the law!

Re:Copyright infringement?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps you meant to sugest that theur URLs were copyrighted?
Perhaps you meant to sugest that theur URLs were patented?
Perhaps you meant to sugest that theur URLs were trade secrets?
Perhaps you meant to sugest that theur URLs were trademarks?

I'd like to suggest a spellchecker.

Re:Copyright infringement?

[studerby]

Nor in the USA. To be copyrightable, the work must contain a certain threshhold amount of creativity (very very minimal).

Titles are explicitly not copyrightable, and URLs are (arguably) either an address (also not copyrightable) or a title that conforms to a technical specification.

Re:Copyright infringement?

[d34thm0nk3y]

Could Orbitz claim that their URLs are their intellectual property, and forbid anyone else from using that property

Which makes absolutely no sense because there is no such legal entity as "Intellectual Property".

Well, how about URL's are a representation of their "unique compilation" of data and then fall under the database protection stuff we have been hearing about. It is a stretch but a well funded laywer could probably pull it off.

Re:Copyright infringement?

[zcat_NZ]

http://www.example.com/Here_springs_an_idea/make_y our_address_haiku/enforce_copyright/

Re:Copyright infringement?

[zcat_NZ]

Ahh fuck, screwed it up..

"here_springs_an_idea/make_your_addresses_haiku/ en force_copyright/"

And thanks slashdot for the manditory space!!

Re:Copyright infringement?

[I Like Pudding]

If it's possible to copyright URLs, then I have dibs on /index.html

Re:Copyright infringement?

[joeljkp]

I read an explanation elsewhere that compared URLs to physical addresses. It'd be ridiculus to copyright "123 Maple Ave.", although you could argue that the government assigned that one to you.

Try copyrighting "Mail Stop 4, Dept. #4528, Building 6", though.

Re:Copyright infringement?

[Alsee]

If I recall correctly it only kicks in if you're making a compilation, not if you are merely using discrete items. Also only the EU recognizes any sort of database protection. They tried to pass it in the US but it died. I'm not aware of any effort to pass it in anywhere else.

-

Re:Copyright infringement?

[StateOfTheUnion]

Actually a collection of factual information is copyrightable in that organization of the collection is creative and can be copyrighted. For example, tables of logarithms can be copyrighted. The logarithm values cannot be copyrighted (they are the "facts"), but the layout in the book, the organization of data, the paging, etc. make the work copyrightable.

If someone copies the values one could not claim infringment, but if one photocopied the pages . . . one may have a case for copyright infringment. Similarly, one may be able to argue copyright on the organization and presentation of information embedded in a URL . . . I'm not saying that one would win this case, but is arguable.

Re:Copyright infringement?

[Alsee]

http://www.example.com/Here_springs_an_idea/
make _your_address_haiku/enforce_copyright/

Some game cartridge publishers tried that trick with a small copyrighted image. The only way to unlock a console and run the game was to have the image at the start of the software. The court ruled that using the image was not copyright infringment when it was used as a purely functional element.

Nice try tho.

-

Re:Copyright infringement?

[Alsee]

argue copyright on the organization and presentation of information embedded in a URL . . . I'm not saying that one would win this case, but is arguable.

We can skip the obvious argument and stipulate that it is copyrighted. The argument to defeat that is that we are not using it as a copyrighted work but as a purely functional element.

Actually ...organization of the collection is creative and can be copyrighted.

True... but... but... but... I just didn't mention it...
Akkkkk. My brain keeps reading your wording as an attempt to "correct" something in my post and it wants to argue your "correction" is wrong because my post was not incorrect... but what you wrote is correct.... but reading it as a correction of my post is incorrect... ERROR... ERROR... FAULTY... FAULTY... MUST STERILIZE... I AM NOMAD... ERROR... ERROR... STERILIZE... STERILIZE...

-

Depends on their goal...

[schon]

There are two possible reasons they're doing this:

1) to maximize their advertising, they want people to go in through the front page.

2) they're trying to stop screen-scraping aggregators

Blocking based on the Referer: header would be effective if their goal was #1, but pretty much useless if their goal is #2.

From the new terms of use...

[Kredal]

You may not... "Use any robot, spider, other automatic device, or manual process to monitor Content"

So I guess that means that hitting "F5" to refresh is right out. OK, well, I won't be using them anymore.

Similar, but not the same

[Apatharch]

In case I'm not being clear, here's a similar example. I run a web site which has a TOS that states that we have the right to bounce accounts for excessive profanity and various other naughty things. Now, this does not mean that we're running a profanity filter and proactively bouncing anybody who utters the random "fuck." The TOS is in place so that we have a clearly defined right to bounce people who are being obnoxious. If somebody were to send me an e-mail similar to yours -- "I would like to use your site but since you won't let me use profanity I'll go somewhere else instead" -- I would rightfully point out that they were being a moron.

But what you're doing isn't quite the same thing; whereas you are reserving the right to terminate a user licence on a particular basis, Orbitz is specifically prohibiting an activity (in the absence of a separate agreement moderating said activity). I know I'm nitpicking here, but the example you gave is not quite analogous to the Orbitz ToS.

Actually...

[Apatharch]

...the ToS has this right at the start:

Access to and use of these websites is subject to acceptance of the terms and conditions below

Which suggests to me that they intend to apply the thing to anyone so much as sending them a request header.

Don't make a joke out of this

[ChuckSchwab]

They have every right to make rules regarding their website. It's their website after all. They can prohibit deep linking if they want to. It's just like me prohibiting smoking in my home.

Re:Don't make a joke out of this

[cayenne8]

"They have every right to make rules regarding their website. It's their website after all. They can prohibit deep linking if they want to. It's just like me prohibiting smoking in my home."

Well, except for the fact that your home is private property. The internet, specifically the web portion, is a public forum. If you don't want the information out there, don't put it out there.

Sure, you can tell me not to smoke in your house, but, you can't tell me not to smoke outside your house on the sidewalk in front of it and your property.

It would be more like you having a huge neon sign out on the front of your house. You couldn't tell me when and how long I could look at it from the street now could you?

robots.txt

[Anonymous Coward]

If they're that worried about inbound links surely they should put a

User-agent: *
Disallow: /

in the robots.txt file

Even easier

[schon]

I wrote a Roxen module some time ago that could be used for this, without maintaining any server-side state info.. it was intended for a pay-per-view site (no, not *that* kind of pay-per-view :o)... they wanted a way to email file links to customers, without having to maintain a user database, and without requiring users to log on to download content. (but if customer bought item A, they would be prevented from accessing item B.)

It basically hashes the URL and all arguments with a secret, which was appended to the URL as a checksum; if you want to expire the link, you simply include an argument called 'expires', which was a timestamp for the link to expire. If the customer changed the expiry or the URL, the checksum became invalid.

Hmm.. maybe I should have applied for a patent on that... /me ducks :o)

A Better Fix

[Rollsbot]

Since Orbitz obviously has a problem with the way the web works, wouldn't a complete take down of their website be a better fix?

They wouldn't have to worry about the whole linking problem, and they could focus all their efforts on improving their other outlets to customers... They don't really want to present their customers with the whole web experience anyway.

F- Off

[Anonymous Coward]

http://cruises.orbitz.com/promotion/amexsale/defau lt.html

Haha!!!!

A similar case in the Netherlands

[SpaghettiPattern]

I know of a case from the Netherlands where newspaper editors wanted to prohibit deep linking to their sites. The judge did not honor the request.

IMHO you can link to whatever you want on the Internet. There are enough ways to prevent your content being accessed by unauthorized people. The content provider is the only one responsible for its authorization management.

Only if you are a Wizard (or perhaps a King)

[CharonX]

Well, we know DEATH turns up personally for wizards, and Kings have the privilege of getting the sword instead of the scythe.
Other then that... if your death is extraordinary (crushed when Aliens wanted to return "Fat Elvis" by dropping him from 100 meter above your head?), might earn you a personal visit too.
Other than that - well, you probably won't get a personal visit - its like being ruled by a king (or president); you are ruled even though he doesn't hog your coach and the TV remote and nags about your wallpaper.

I, for one,

[wikinerd]

I, for one, like to follow such self-destructive policies. I run a site which has a policy of placing as many links as possible (in my view every word should be a link). Whenever I see that I site has a no-linking policy, I remember it and I disallow any links to it from my site. In this way I help them to kill themselves by destroying their Google pagerank, and I am very happy for that. Let them die by their own stupidity. The Web cannot be Free without links!

Bookmarks

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't that mean that users can't bookmark the site, either? A bookmark is technically a link to their web site, and many web browsers store links in HTML format.

Breakin' the law! Breakin' the law!

Remember the last /. story on them?

[Mnemia]

Story

They were implicated in some sort of shady sharing of consumer data/credit card numbers.

Payment Info:

[CumInHerTaco]

Here you go, I can never avoid clicking the linkies:

$$$$$$$$$$
$$$$$$$$$$

Payment in full.

Numbskull legacy carriers

[aquarian]

Orbitz is owned by a group of 5 major airlines:

* American
* Continental
* Delta
* Northwest
* United

...who normally try to play their cards close to their chests. They see too much information as a threat. Best of luck to them in today's world. They're already going down the tubes, as more forward thinking airlines eat their lunch.

Orbitz is owned by CENDANT

[IronicGrin]

It was purchased about a month back from the consortium of airlines that had founded it. Cendant is a giant "nothin' but brands" company that specializes in franchise operations--they own Budget, Avis, a bunch of hotel brands, Century 21 (the real estate brokerage), etc., etc. They also have a travel division that owns Orbitz, CheapTickets.com, and so on.

Plus they're a major player in the timeshare business. They own RCI (the biggest timeshare management and swapping enterprise; the other one is Interval International).

For what it's worth.

Let Orbitz know about it!

[Schweg]

If this policy is unacceptable to you, and you are a customer of Orbitz, let them know about it! I just sent an email to their customer support and corporate communications addresses, requesting that they remove all registration information and close my account, because of their changes to their TOS regarding deep linking.

How about automated extraction?

[Black Perl]

It would seem that you can automatically extract that kind of information without "linking" to it at all. For example, WWW::Mechanize is a way to create a virtual browser that could even start at www.orbitz.com, follow links and/or fill out forms, meanwhile providing all cookie/referer information Orbitz needs, to get whatever data you need.

If you don't create a link, can you call it deep linking?

Here's the e-mail I sent to Orbitz.

[EtherGnat]

As a web developer I run a number of websites for conferences that direct users to orbitz.com and appropriate sub-pages. It appears that I am now in violation of section 6 of your Terms of service.

To rectify this situation, I formally ask your permission to change my links to www.travelocity.com and/or www.thats-the-dumbest-fucking-idea-i-ever-heard-of .com. Your prompt response will be appreciated.

Sincerely,
Michael Chastain
Web Developer

Re:Here's the e-mail I sent to Orbitz.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a very, um, professional sounding email. If I were looking for a good, levelheaded "Web Developer", I'd hire you in a minute. Good thing this post is archived online for future reference, with your name and all.

Seriously, I hope you think you're this cool when you google it ten years from now. My college newspaper archived some of my old "letters to the editor" and they're damned embarrassing. Sounded great to me then though, and who knew then that this new internet thing would be here to keep them accessible forever.

That would be trade secrets.

[tepples]

Trade secrets doesn't work because the moment they allow members of the public to ever see the URL is ceases to be a trade secret. So that doesn't work.

I figure the thinking is that they don't allow "members of the public" to ever see the URL. They allow only account holders, who have agreed to the non-disclosure policy which is the subject of this article, to see the URL.

Re:That would be trade secrets.

[Alsee]

Hmmm... you definitely score points for applying "IP" law correctly :) but I think this instance is stretched a weeeee bit beyond the breaking point. A public website where anyone can come along and sign up as Donald Duck and aquire the secret under a contract of adhesion claiming NDA? I don't quite think that passes the sniff test as due dilligence in protecting the secret. Chuckle. Good try tho.

-

Re: I'm signing on to a No Orbitz Use policy!

[Stuart Poss]

Given their attempt to make the internet private I will use no products or services from this firm (unless they pay me lots of money to do so).

LOL WHAT

[Anonymous Coward]

u fought the law and the lawn won??? Endut! Hoch hech.

This is refering to THIRD PARTY Sites

[Anonymous Coward]

"We welcome links from a third party site to the home page of our Site, through a plain text link, provided that (a) you give Orbitz prior written notice of such link by contacting Orbitz Customer Service, to request Orbitz's permission to establish the link; (b) you discontinue providing a link to our Site if so requested by Orbitz; (c) you do not imply in any fashion that Orbitz is endorsing any of your products or service or is affiliated with you, (d) you do not present Orbitz in a false light, or provide misleading or false information about Orbitz, or its Site or Services, (e) you do not remove or obscure the copyright notices, or other notices on this Site; (f) you do not use any Mark of Orbitz; and (g) you do not replicate, frame or mirror the content of the Site."

Reading this posting was waste of my employer's valuable time !

Excuse me?

[Eminence]

Excuse me, but why this is news? I don't get it. I never heard of this website before, I visited it out of curiosity and they appear to be just another interface to the airline/hotels booking systems. Why is it so important that some changes in its pathetic "agreements" are news?

Re:Excuse me?

[cpghost]

I never heard of them either and I couldn't care less. They are not the only one to have stupid TOS. Who knows who drafted this utter piece of legaleze crap for them anyway? They may not even be aware of the sheer stupidity of it. Poor fellows.

Bzzt. Wrong

[TiggertheMad]

Actually, It does not matter if you sign the agreement because there is no exchange of value. If there is no exchange of value, a contract is not legally binding.

Orbitz could argue that accessing the data that they are presenting you is a service, and ergo, an exchange of value has occured.

Sidestep.com

[caseyhelbling]

I'm sure this is in response to http://sidestep.com/'s recent steal of some of Orbitz's market share. It allows users the ability to compare multiple sites prices (thus the deep linking) via their toolbar. Expedia, Orbitz, and travelocity all have deep ties and were founded by the same people who are now founding http://kayak.com/.

so just have the webserver redirect ...

[Hohlraum]

to the main site when the referer isn't from their domain. granted it'll only work for 99.99999% of all browser that sent the referer header. ;)

Breach of Contract vs Unauthorized Access

[MattW]

[Note: I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. If you need advice, consult an attorney who can consider the specifics of your case. And above all, ignore people on Slashdot who display a remarkable ignorance of applicable precedent.]

If you access their site in a manner that they explicitly prohibit in a terms and conditions you necessarily would have to read to get the links in the first place, then you violate their terms and conditions, you could be arrested and tried for violation of the CFAA. They don't need a contract to sue you; they'll just claim the access was unauthorized and an intentional tort, and they'll sue you for lost revenue relating to your posting the links you obtained in violation of the CFAA. The need for an account on their site is an access control.

Also, if you're going to play lawyer on Slashdot, you may want to err on the side of caution rather than advising people that some EULA is unenforceable. Slashdot itself has covered a case where clickthrough EULAs were ruled enforceable, even when they contained draconian provisions (waiving first sale rights, waiving fair use rights).

Re:distributed vomputing

[Emot]

>distributed vomputing
Dude. I love this. I want to take part in a Distributed Vompute. Especially if it's what I thnk it is - hundreds upon hundreds of dudes standing around in an interconnected webwork, all of whom puking at once. Said puke filling up some giant sort of bucket somewhere. This vomit is then twirled around in a combinator of sorts (some variety of embryonic replicator) and then injected back into the participants in the Distributed Vompute as nourishment.
Really, a Distributed Vompute is a whole lot of awesome. A whole God-damned lot of awesome. Where do I sign up?

Welcome to Link Island!

[cpghost]

It's still February.

They're just giving Google and other search engines some time to purge them from their indexes.

By March 12th, they expect to be a link island (noone linking to them).

It's even worse than you think.

[stuartkahler]

They are even disallowing you from linking to their home page without notifying them and agreeing to remove the link upon their demand. This means that even bookmarking their orbitz.com is a violation of the TOS (so is this sentance). Orbitz is one of their service marks, so mentioning them by name is a violation of their TOS. Orbitz is a bunch of dicks, so this sentence is also a violation of their TOS (do not present Orbitz in a false light). I definately don't plan to sign up for their site and agree to their T&C, so they're unenforceable on me.
Screw Orbitz.

screw Orbitz...link to their fare search provider:

[museumpeace]

ita software built the fastest fare search engine in the world and leases it out to comanies like Oribtz. If you don't have a specific business deal with Orbitz, you can get your optimized fare straight from ITA and just go to website of of the airline they turn up for you to book the flight directly with the carrier...same prices, same seats, wicked fast.

I vote "stupid" (with a vengence).

[khasim]

These are the same people who refuse to put un-subscribe info on their mailings AND refuse to remove bounced email addresses from their mailings.

These people cannot even master technology that has been available to lists for years.

Even spammers can include a unique link to "unsubscribe" you based upon your address (don't click on it, though).

But not Orbitz. If I want someone off of their mailing list, I have to call their tech support people and ASK to have them removed OR I have to implement the technology to filter on TO: non-existant-user / FROM: orbitz.com -> reject.

Biggest impact on business decision is money

[seeks2know]

If you do not like Orbitz decision, then the simplest way to get their attention is to vote with your dollars.

If you use Orbitz to make your travel arrangements, then send them an email letting them know that you are taking your business elsewhere. And then do it!

I also in noted another post above, that by forcing users to remove all of their links to Orbitz, that Orbitz will see it's ranking in search engines drop. That ought to wake a few people at Orbitz up as well.

A much better idea: follow their instructions

[fname]

OK, I like this part, "(a) you give Orbitz prior written notice of such link by contacting Orbitz Customer Service, to request Orbitz's permission to establish the link." Now, I think the rest of it takes care of itself. How about starting an email campaign asking permission to link to Orbitz. Sure, they could handle a couple hundred requests, but what if 10,000 /.'ers asked permission? What if this got on Boing Boing and 100,000 people wrote it? What if the EFF put out an action alert and 1,000,000 people asked permission to post a link to Orbitz? Now THAT would get their attention.

Here's a link to the rules, and the email address is customerservice@orbitz.com. I've just written them. Who's on board?

Re:A much better idea: follow their instructions

[syukton]

Tangentially, did you ask for permission before deep-linking to the rules? ;)

You can't edit a comment on slashdot and this comment will persist after the new rules go into effect...

Re:A much better idea: follow their instructions

[museumpeace]

proposing an ethically iffy DOS against Orbitz as a protest against their onerous policy has appeal but its the same slippery slope as the DOS screen savers aimed at spam hosting ISPs...one bad turn does NOT justify another. Any way, who'd get the headache at the end of the day, the $7.85/hr intern that answers that email?

Re:A much better idea: follow their instructions

[fname]

But here's the brilliant part-- they tell you to email them (call them in fact, based on their response to my email) for permission to post a link. So it's like putting up a website & asking for a DDOS attack. Now, imagine 100,000 emails asking the same thing, or 100,000 phone calls taking 10 minutes each. That's 160,000 hours * $8/hr = $1,280,000. Y'know, just in case anyone wants to post a link.

google cache and other archives

[grando]

I wonder if google would be liable for having a cached copy of a page I make with an orbitz link in it. Or, perhaps archive.org and the wayback machine?

*And* it's subsidiaries and affiliates?

[MirrororriM]

""Orbitz" or "we" means Orbitz, LLC, and its subsidiaries and affiliates. Orbitz is a subsidiary of Cendant Corporation."

So does this mean no linking to any of Orbitz subsidiaries and affiliates either or you violate the TOS? Well, I guess they're looking to drag down their subsidiaries and affiliates right along with themselves. It's hard to plan a vacation online without being able to share the plan with the people you intend to vacation with...uh...online.

For now, I guess I'm sticking with AAA travel in town - at least then I can get a brochure to *hand* to my travel partners...or will that be next?

hey

[Anonymous Coward]

But I don't the they are a Shitty travel site, you insencitive clod!

In real world

[ashwani]

This is something like this in real world.. Bills gates disallows everybody from using his name in text or indirectly referring to him. So, when I say to my friend that Bill Gates owns Microsoft, I may actually breaking the law of property. So, when referring to orbitz.com, can I say orbitzz.com (-z) ??

Orbitz

[mrudel]

Orbitz is owned by Cendant, not the airlines. It was bought out recently. If you RTFT (read the fucking terms), you'll see it refers to DEEP LINKING. You can still link to http://www.orbitz.com, but what you cannot due is link to a set of search results within the engine. This is not possible anyways, because the results from a search within Orbitz are linked to your 'session ID'. This session expires after 15 minutes of inactivity. So if you gave someone the URL, all that they would get would be a search box, anyways. This is mainly to prevent robots from crawling the site (and disregarding the robots.txt file). So it's really irrelevant. Orbitz can form special sticky URLs that link to a search result's CURRENT cache if they want, and they send these out in spam^H^H^H^Hmarketing e-mails.

Stupid...

[karnat10]

...because links are the web's currency. But hell, who cares? There's more than enough alternatives around. Fsck you, orbits.

Spoof the referrer field

[Webmoth]

Some browsers let you withold the referrer field. How hard would it be to modify the browser to spoof the referrer so a deep link from a foreign website appears to be referred from their own site?

TV Commercial

[Anonymous Coward]

Seen their 'Don't Think' commercial? It's the one with the blue blobby-circles-and-squares people singing "DON'T THINK!" over and over. I fscking hate it and its shoddy attempt at dumbing down America through not-exactly subliminal advertising...

Limit this with CGI?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why couldn't they simply limit this by having every page be a result of CGI?

http://orbitz.com/cgi-bin/resultcgi

And using a cookie to keep state information?

We do it where I work to stop users from doing this, I don't see why Orbitz can't if they really care.

Orbitz

[Martdc]

The terms fail on the first para. It says that by accessing the site you accept the terms, so by reading the terms you accept them, even if you don't! This is not enforcable since you can't object. Its a bit like the terms being in an envelope and opening it accepts them. So If you haven't accepted them you should be able to link without their permission, after all the link is on your site and a link is a reference not property. If you make money from the link its another story however.

PageRank

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

The Google Anti-Bomb: oblige them, and watch their Google PageRank go to zero.

it's the crawlers thy're after

[TheRotobo]

*sigh* of course most of you are missing the point. I work in the travel industry, so I know exactly what they are trying to do... protect their investment in their search tools, and control the presentation of their product. Believe me... you'll see a LOT of this from other travel sites soon, so I guess get ready to be real PO'ed. The crawlers out there are killer, esp the ones that trick the user into believing they've linked to a site like Orbitz, but are actually on some mirror full of ganked assets. That's what they want to stop. We'll see whether they go after one schlep who forwards a deal to their buddy. I'd bet $$s to donuts not... they'll go after the aggregators who are crawling, swiping assets, and spoofing the user.

Personally...

[NemosomeN]

I think that if Orbitz wants to prohibit deep linking, then we should just follow the rules. It's their site, and they can do whatever they want with it. I find it immoral and rude to blatantly ignore the rules they set forth. Agree to the TOS to join and you agree to the terms therein. Quit whining, and just accept that you can't deep link.

mod parent up informative

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a webmonkey, and I concur with parent.

Please mod parent up, because the other replies to the same grandparent are mostly unhelpful.

This isn't very different from the rules you use in mod_rewrite to disallow hotlinking or block spambots.

Wait for Google to delist them

[Anonymous Coward]

Fine. Let Google remove them from any airline/airfare/flight queries.

Yeah, that will last about .00002 seconds.

...no account though...

[Hobadee]

...but I don't have an Orbitz account, thus I do not nessasarily agree with their terms and conditions, thus I can link all I want to the Orbitz site!

Another reason not to use Orbitz

[NaDrew]

Orbitz is now owned by Cendant, a membership services megacorporation mostly concerned with obtaining personal and financial information about consumers who use its many, many franchise brand names and selling or repurposing that information for its own profit. I avoid Cendant-owned companies whenever possible, and the thought of them now owning Orbitz just means I'll use Expedia or Travelocity more often. You would not believe how many pies Cendant has their fingers into.

Flash

[sr180]

Why dont they just make it a Macromedia Flash based website. No legal issues required, no linking is possible, just a site that blows.

use rel="nofollow"

[joe_plastic]

orbitz
orbitz
If you use rel="nofollow" then can you link and not give them google juice.

I emailed them

[nns6561]

I sent customersupport an email asking if I could link my bookmarks to their frontpage as requested by their TOS. Here's the email I received back from them: Dear Orbitz Member, Thank you for contacting Orbitz. We request you to mail to our Chief Privacy Officer regarding your concerns. Chief Privacy Officer Orbitz LLC 200 South Wacker Drive, Suite 1900, Chicago, IL 60606. We value your feedback and appreciate your taking the time to write to us. Why can't they get this straight? They ask me to email customersupport, but when I do, customersupport asks me to write to their Chief Privacy Officer. It sounds like they didn't inform customersupport of the proper linking policies.

Dear Orbitz

[Anonymous Coward]

- which of your competitors would you like us to link to instead?

Sincerely,
The people who generate most of your traffic

Fare screen-scrapers (WAS: anti-Phishing...)

[i0n]

I'm not sure what the Legal department's motivations were, but I believe it's most likely along the lines of providing a framework in which to have a stronger legal challenge to scrapers and and air/hotel/car meta-search sites. Orbitz get's scraped by a LOT of people for many different motivations. Some are trying to provide as many sources for fares or room rates as possible (Sidestep, Yahoo Farechase, Kayak, Mobissimo, etc). Some of these sites Orbitz allows (with business partnerships), some of them they shun when they see any accesses. There are also those who scrape (competitors, or those whom the competitors hire) to get a gauge on competitiveness (QL2, Marketscore, etc).
As for the question of the usefullness of this policy as directed towards 'members', notice that to reprice any fare or hotel rate (which confirms that the system's cached fare/rate is still valid by contacting the airline/hotel system directly (which is more expensive for Orbitz)) you need an Orbitz login. Scrapers commonly will register these logins by the hundreds every time they visit (thereby subjecting them to the TOS).

How many years to learn the law?

[runamok1]

I've always felt it was rather ironic that you need to go to school for 8 years or so to become qualified to know the law; i.e. become a lawyer.

However, ignorance is no defense if you commit a crime.

Where is the EULA I had to click OK to that warned me of all the potential punishments if I punch someone or download a copyrighted MP3 or let my dog "fertilize" the neighbor's lawn?

I'll show you "deep linking"!

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Clearly they don't grasp the concept of the Internet.

It's like saying, "Without prior written permission, you may not look at me while I walk around in public, naked."

chewing gum?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares about some stupid company that makes
chewing gum?

Internet suported by Tax $

[spineboy]

that's what I meant by that statement.

Re:Hmmm (Orbitz Reply)

[jimoc]

Dear (name removed),

Thank you for your recent correspondence to Orbitz with regards to our new Terms and Conditions. Orbitz has always welcomed personal use of its website; however, we must retain reasonable control over the website to prevent commercial misuses of the site.

First of all, we need to use terms with a common understanding. "Deep Links" or "Deep Linking" as used in Orbitz' Terms of Service specifically means by-passing the Orbitz interface (home page and search process) by linking directly to search results.

This is not new, and our concern is expressed as well in the current terms of service in a slightly different manner. Orbitz has numerous relationships with companies that use deep-links to its website for commercial purposes, and welcomes these links, where and when the appropriate permissions have been granted.

Orbitz has an obligation to its users to ensure the appropriate use of our website and its content, and must take reasonable steps to avoid customer confusion related to the source of the information provided to its users. Additionally, it is necessary to prevent uses that interfere with the proper working of the site, or uses that impose an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our infrastructure.

There is nothing in the Orbitz' new Privacy Policy or Terms and Conditions which precludes an individual or commercial enterprise from linking to our website home page, or from linking to a specific page for informational purposes, or from e-mailing an purchased or potential itinerary to another person for informational purposes. In fact, some of these functions are available today on the website.

Thank you for your interest in using Orbitz. We appreciate your business, and we look forward to assisting you with your travel plans in the near future.

Sincerely,

(name removed)
Orbitz Customer Relations
Chicago, IL

Funny thing about this nicely worded reply is, NOWHERE and I MEAN NOWHERE on either their old or new terms of conditions, does Orbitz use the phrase deep-linking or any derivitive of it. So how can they expect us to use terms of common understanding when they don't even use the terms?

Oh yeah, and before I forget.

[ebyrob]

Nobody said a contract has to be fair, it just has to be legal.

Actually, a lot of judges take a pretty dim view of a large corporation with many lawyers trying to coerce a "contract" onto Mamma Milqtoast when she's just out trying to live her life.

Re:Oh yeah, and before I forget.

[AviLazar]

That's a lot different then a contract having to be fair - that is, coersion (sp?). They are trying to muscle her out (in a white collar fashion). In cases of disputes, the judges also tend to favor the people who did not write the contract. So if 95 year old grandma says "I thought it meant xyz" and the judge finds that "xyz" is worded in a very archaic way that a 'reasonable' person could not understand, then grandma will probably win.

On the whole, however, if you sign a contract and after you get the benefits of it you complain that it "wasn't fair" then tough noogies.

Part of the problem with our legal system is the people it represents. People want it all. I remember when I was a little kid. I went on a school trip and won a six pack of soda (we toured a 7-UP factory). I sold a can of soda to a girl in my class for $1.00 She drank the soda, then complained to the teacher that I sold it to her for $1.00. I had to give the money back, and had my soda confiscated...This mentality is seen in adult life with bigger deals then a soda for $1.00.

It's a shame - but in the end everyone is to blame (remember that large corporation is run by people who are the same as the rest of us.)