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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."
Orbitz has silly new rules for users.
So don't use them.
Duh.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Ok, they have some unenforcable legal nonsense in their terms & conditions, but does that justify giving them a free advert on slashdot?
Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
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.
sig:- (wit >= sarcasm)
If you don't like their terms, don't use their service.
This has nothing to do with "rights".
(and I mean that sincerely), but I can link to whoever the hell I want, right?
qntm.org
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!
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
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?
> 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.
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.
orbitz is supported by our tax dollars?
Please, do explain.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
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.
qntm.org
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.
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:
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
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
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.
If you mod me down, I shall become less powerful than you could possibly imagine.
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.
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.
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.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
You could always link to Orbitz' competitors instead.
Some people have a way with words, and some people, um, thingy.
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.
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.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
The Google Anti-Bomb: oblige them, and watch their Google PageRank go to zero.
In Soviet Russia the insensitive clod is YOU!