A new twist - *outbound* link policies
So, bad enough that there are still plenty of companies out there who don't get the whole "your URL is public. I can link to it. Now shut up." concept.
But I was just now presented with an agreement to "sign" (via a pop-up, no less) when clicking a link out of a company's site. Just in case that's not clear (or sounds insane), yes, they want to hang some legal baggage on my clicking through them to another site.
In particular, while viewing this page at mindjet.com, I clicked on the "gyronix.com" link. Not a link directly to the other site, of course -- a tracking/redirector link, nothing unusual there.
Until the pop-up, that is.
I won't quote the whole thing (although it would be interesting to learn their views on Fair Use), but the key paragraph (all-caps all theirs) reads:
THIS AGREEMENT IS A LEGALLY BINDING CONTRACT BETWEEN YOU AND MINDJET. BY CLICKING ON THE "I ACCEPT" BUTTON BELOW, OR BY DOWNLOADING, ACCESSING OR USING ANY PART OF THE SOLUTION, YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT YOU HAVE READ THIS AGREEMENT, THAT YOU UNDERSTAND IT, AND THAT YOU AGREE TO BE LEGALLY BOUND BY ITS TERMS AND CONDITIONS.
"The Solution". The link to http://www.gyronix.com/. Holy crap.
Go ahead, click. No rights reserved. I hereby dedicate the above link to the public domain.
Comments
Holy crap! I guess I see why some obsessive and overpaid policy paper pusher felt the need to put some legal jargon in the form of a EULA that you must "accept" in order to access their site.
Hopefully that IS the reason for it. If it is, as you say, solely based in their distate for linking, then they've just inducted themselves into an elite group of asshats.
Posted by: Jeantet | August 25, 2004 5:08 PM
Yeah, but the twist is -- this is coming from the site containing the link, not the linked-to site.
I click on a link, they pop up and ask me to accept their terms before sending me through. A whole different kind of stupidity from the usual (Fast Company, et al.) "linking policy" gibberish.
Posted by: Paul Roub | August 25, 2004 5:15 PM
Paul
I am the owner of the above-mentioned www.gyronix.com.
Now we know why some users are in a bad mood when they eventually get to our site :-)
You're more than welcome to visit us from any direction. And link to us as well, if you like. The disclaimer on the Mindjet site is not our policy.
Nick
Posted by: Nick | August 27, 2004 8:43 AM