RE: [deepLinking-25] What to say in defense of principle that dee p linking is not an illegal act?

I think Tim has a better analogy because there is no statement of 
intent to give away property.  There is a failure to use available 
means to protect property.  

It is useful to know when a statement from a representative of 
an organization is being personally informative vs authoritative.  An 
expert witness has no explicit intent; they are requested/hired 
to offer expert testimony.  If someone volunteers, they have 
intent.  If the W3C has a position and an interest, it should 
state both.

One can be agnostic about politics but it is not difficult 
to offer a justifiable intent: the well-being of the community 
of users.  [The problem of venue and the use of a world 
wide system for offering access to property is going to 
be with us for a long time; local laws prevail and all 
an architecture can do is provide configurable means. I think 
this is what Lessing is saying. ]

So yes, in answer to the original query which seemed to question 
the role of the technical community, as members of a broader 
community of Internet/Web users, there is an interest and an 
intent, and it is fully justifiable.  There is no need to 
pretend otherwise.  Simply state it up front.   One does have to 
be careful that a position offered under a masthead has 
the permission of the owner of that masthead.

len

-----Original Message-----
From: Joshua Allen [mailto:joshuaa@microsoft.com]

> If a person breaks into your house and steals your jewelry,
> is it theft when they entered through an unlocked door?

I think the analogy is more like "if you give a person your jewelry, and
they take it, is that theft?"

> You are influencing social policy.   Otherwise, you would not
> have to comment at all because the mechanisms are already in place.

Well, personally I would try to be agnostic to the politics end of it,
even if the statements were meant to influence political decision
making.  The way I see it, the problem and solution are more general:

Problem: a few people, including media and possibly political
decision-makers, have become confused about some very basic principles.

Solution:  Reiterate the principles.

1) A URL is given to a page so that people can hyperlink globally and
directly to it.
2) This is the only purpose of a URL.  "Deep Linking" is the *only* kind
of linking.
3) If someone does not want a page to be linked globally or directly,
that is fine.  Nobody forces them to give the page a URL.
4) By design and in practice, assigning a URL to a web page is a
contract with the world which says "please hyperlink to me".
5) This contract can be revoked at any time by a page owner.  If the
page owner wishes to opt out of deep linking, he can simply un-assign
the URL.  Nobody is forcing the page owner to perpetually expose their
page publicly.
6) If a person wishes to provide content in a manner that does not
involve direct and global linking, there are plenty of options available
besides URLs.

Received on Thursday, 25 July 2002 16:59:50 UTC