'BusinessWeek': Don't link to us

BusinessWeek apparently doesn't need anyone to help it boost its Web traffic.

According to a blog post on Gawker, BusinessWeek not only asks people not to link to its site, it specifically directs them to its user agreement that prohibits the practice of "deep linking."

Gawker points to the example of SmugMug CEO Don MacAskill, who writes in his blog that after being interviewed for a feature story in BusinessWeek, he was expressly told not to link to the story. "Yes, that's right, an ad-driven publication doesn't want us to drive traffic to them," he says in his blog. In addition, he was urged to review the company's user agreement.

According to the user agreement on BusinessWeek's Web site, a user may not:

"use or attempt to use any 'deep-link,' 'scraper,' 'robot,' 'bot,' 'spider,' 'data mining,' 'computer code' or any other automated device, program, tool, algorithm, process or methodology or manual process having similar processes or functionality, to access, acquire, copy, or monitor any portion of BW.com, any data or content found on or accessed through BW.com, or any other BW.com information without prior express written consent of BW."

While some online publications have a policy on deep linking, it's pretty unusual to enforce it. Most sites obviously consider it a boon for page views and look on it favorably, as long as the content is credited to the correct source.

MacAskill speculates that BusinessWeek's stance is the result of corporate red tape, and not something that would be embraced by its reporters and editors. "To spend all of this time and energy on their articles, only to have the crazy business people make it impossible for people to read their work, must be incredibly trying," he says in his blog.

[Lee in San Diego]

Can it be enforced?

What is the law on that subject?

[MarkBentley]

No can be sure...

as is often the case with the law. A spat between Microsoft and Ticketmaster where Microsoft linked past some of Ticketmaster's advertisements was settled before the case was decided. I believe it was a trademark or domain name violation case. Given the nature of the loss to Ticketmaster in that case and BusinessWeek in this situation, there might not be much money that BusinessWeek is entitled to even if it has rights in this area.

[expatincebu]

Missing Link

This story is missing a link to business week online. I am happy to provide it.

http://www.businessweek.com/

Sue me aholes.

[ulric2]

re:Missing Link

That's not deep-linking.. a link to their main page, and not a sub-page, is exactly what they are asking.

[BirdDog01]

Don't link to us

From Wikipedia:

According to the World Wide Web Consortium Technical
Architecture Group, "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".

[frankz00]

Uhhhhh...

What Web are they looking at?

[kgsbca]

A link is just an address

How can anyone prevent anybody else from providing an address? Ignoring the stupidity of BW for a moment, just because they say on their website they don't want anybody to pass on a link to a page, it doesn't mean they have that right. Publishing something on your website doesn't make it a law, and last I heard, and address (in hyperlink form or whatever) is not copyrightable. Not that the brains at BW can understand that concept.

And while we're on the subject of brains at BW, maybe that's not an accurate term. The revenue of a website like BW increases with the number of visitors. Why would they want to minimize that?

This is why, when I hear people say government should be run like businesses, I have to laugh (or cry). They already are run that way. The only differences is that businesses can't levy taxes or run deficits for too long. But government has no monopoly on incompetence and politics.

[seandburke]

Hmmm, a for-profit pub doesn't want you to read their articles for free?

Well, it sounds like they might feel threatened that their newsstand sales are in a slump like all newpapers and magazines that offer their same content online for free! Who would continue to subscribe to news publications when the ability to search, click and read is easy! Call me Crazy.

[tlcoles]

Agreed.

There is no reason that BW cannot exploit (as other sites do) the practice of deep-linking to ensure that their advertising revenue is added to by each and every page of their site. They could also make their pages password protected for subscribers (a practice that is notably being abandoned by big players including the New York Times). That they do not understand that there are better options than "don't link to us" is, indeed, the evidence of their ignorance.

But perhaps we should be grateful for the evidence of that and ignore BW henceforth?

Of course, I already do.

[frankz00]

Http Referer anyone??!?!?

Why don't they just check the Http Referrer? Whose problem is it that their web developers suck???

[frankz00]

How Do They Expect To Get Decent Ad Rates?

If they limit the trafficways to get to their site?

[gsmiller88]

I can see why they would enforce it...

Greed.

Think about it. If BusinessWeek is laid out like most websites, you
have to click through multiple pages before you can get where you
want to go. Multiple clicks equals more ad exposure and more
money!

So basically, design a confusing website, make millions.

[robertaccettura]

Mixed Messages

They say they don't want it, but they facilitate it at the same time. Their blogs have trackback url's below each post, for example:

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/FineOnMedia/archives/2008/01/murdoch_variabl.html

You can also submit any story to digg (deep linking).

It's a shame when management gets so out of touch with their own product.

Oh well. I'm sure their competition says thanks.

[cincytee]

Reading for free

It is indeed ridiculous that publications give away their greatest (and perhaps their only) real asset -- their content -- for free. Until that short-sighted model changes, however, the name of the game is hits. As a former newspaper Web poster, I can tell you we loved the days Drudge linked to us; hits jumped tenfold.

[buzzardsbay]

Please please please....

link to us! We'd love to have you!

http://www.baselinemag.com

[therealphil]

Look at any BW article

They have options for you to email the article (probably a link to it though I haven't tried it), digg it, or save to del.icio.us . . .

Kind of odd for a website have those things if you aren't suppose to link to them.