I have so many updates to my previous post that I decided to just add a new topic here. Corporate websites commandeering copyrights is not in anyway unusual or sensational, but you’d think that government organisations might be more careful.
The Australian government however requests that all non-government organisations seek permission in order to link to austalia.gov.au. If granted permission, you must not “contravene government policy” or “provide a link to australia.gov.au from a site that is not in the public interest”. My blog is definately not in the public interest, but I sent them a request anyway. If they ever reply I’ll post it here. Meanwhile I’ll think of a way to effectively contaravene Australian government policy.
The website of the UK government states that “In entering our site you as a user (‘You’) are accepting our terms and conditions” – but as a citizen of Finland I’m thinking whether I have to accept anything from the UK government. They encourage linking to their site but add some restrictions, such as “[you must not] allow a pop-up to appear simultaneously with Directgov content”. They also mention that “If we contact you to remove your links to Directgov, you must do so immediately”. So will the bobbies soon be knocking on my door?
Unlike governments, universities are usually aware of netiquette. So too is the National University of Singapore:
The University supports and encourages good Netiquette. The University should be informed of links from external websites. However, the University reserves the right to require the removal of any links from external websites to the NUS website. Deep linking to NUS web pages is prohibited – any links created by the user to the University’s website should be text links containing our domain name and which transfer other visitors directly to our homepage.
By defining their own netiquette, these guys are right on the cutting edge of Internet technology! Seriously, what good is a university website if you can’t deep link to its resources?
Third topic today is guns and I’ll tell you straight away what I think – I fucking hate guns! Whether used for combat, self defence, hunting or target practice, guns just suck. Now check out the Armalon Ltd firearms dealer (UK). You might at this point not be surprised to hear that they don’t want any unauthorized links to their website:
Armalon welcomes the creation of authorised links to the home page of this site. However, in recognition of the potential damage that could occur to Armalon’s reputation if this site were to be associated with another site of unsuitable content, you may not create un-authorised links to any part of this site. If you would like to create a link to this site, please contact Armalon by email to obtain prior agreement to the link. By establishing a link of any kind to this site, you agree to be bound by all Terms and Conditions for the use of this site. [...] You may not create deep links into this site without prior agreement from Armalon.
I can imagine what potential damage unauthorized links could do – no more profit from selling arms to murderers, rebels and terrorists… No more innocent animals dying by the hand of bloodthirsty hunters… It would be just horrible if an arms dealer’s reputation was damaged. What about deep links from sites that contain unsuitable content? That could potentially cripple an entire industry. Imagine for example, a website that rants “don’t buy guns”, yet contains deep links to an arms dealer’s products? So hear me out kids – don’t buy guns from these motherfuckers! Yeah, I sent them a request to authorize my links. Can’t wait to hear what they have to say.
Update: My request to link to Armalon was bluntly refused. Still waiting from australia.gov.au.
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