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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."
Ok, they have some unenforcable legal nonsense in their terms & conditions, but does that justify giving them a free advert on slashdot?
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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)
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.
I'm a big tall mofo.
Ok, so if you post a dupe of story it could be serious. No dupe postings of this story after March 12th :)
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.
Can't their web server just reject or redirect any page requests that don't have a referrer field of their own web site?
No sharp objects, I'm a programmer!
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!
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.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
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
Soccer Goal Plans
Why would anyone need to deep link to a gum that keeps your teeth clean anyway?
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
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?
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"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
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...
I'd never heard of them
Congrats to whoever wrote your popup blocker.
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.
-- http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/deeplinking
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.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
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.
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.
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;
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.
Or maybe, Legality of 'Deep Linking' Remains Deeply Complicated
BTW, anyone who reads this post owes me $20, that's my TOS.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
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.
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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.
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
- American
- Continental
- Delta
- Northwest
- United
Travelocity is a SABRE company. Expedia is the Microsoft controlled travel site.You mean this link:- http://www.orbitz.com/robots.txt?
:-P
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!
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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.
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.
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.
There are laws about "unauthorized" use of computer resources. Cite 18 U.S.C. 1030.
/is/ overboard here.
And that's what US Federal Law actually is. I agree with you -- US law
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.
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061