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

> On Behalf Of Joshua Allen
>
> Problem: a few people, including media and possibly political 
> decision-makers, have become confused about some very basic 
> principles.
> 
> Solution:  Reiterate the principles.

Ideal solution: kill the surfing metaphor.
 

> 1) A URL is given to a page so that people can hyperlink 
> globally and directly to it.

All URIs are... URIs. We don't have okey-dokey-RIs and
you-can't-remember-this-RIs, it-depends-on-who-you-are-RIs or
it-depends-on-our-business-model-RIs. A URI is in a global namespace,
period. Unfortunately, cue defences that ape the Namespaces rationale:
you can't link to this because it's not a URI, it just has the syntax of
a URI; where 'link' strongly implies memoize for later download.


> 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.

Yes.


> 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".

No. Say you are invited to retrieve a representation. Hyperlinking is
muddied with the surfing metaphor.


> 5) This contract can be revoked at any time by a page owner.  

How? The revocation cannot be enforced without force of law, if even
that. The web by definition doesn't provide backlinks.



> 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.

Yes, and I'd take a harder line. If a person wishes to provide content
in a manner that does not involve the implications of the URI, there are
options other than the Web. The TAG as I recall accepted a few months
back that having a URI put something on the Web.

regards,
Bill de hÓra