Re: Why Skip Navigation Links are a Hack

> 
>   Is there any particular reason why someone never read the same
>   document twice ? You wouldn't, I hope, argue that a random person X

If you are using anchors as a hack, you could put the anchor after the
notice, so that the user could book mark it after they have been forced
to read the notice.  The existence of that bookmark can act as evidence
that they were at least given the opportunity to read it.

>   would never go back to reading a document and might actually, on the
>   second, third, and umpteenth reading, want to skip the same pre-amble

Most people don't want to read the legal notices even the first time, but
the lawyers want some semblance of forcing them to do so.  Would you
studiously ignore the "skip legalese" link the first time you accessed
a page?

Have you found an option in Windows Update, say, that allows you to
suppress the acceptance of the supplementary licence agreement after you
accepted it the first time; it rarely changes.  (Actually, only displaying
it on a change might increase the chance that it would be read, although
it might reduce the chance that it would be deemed to have been read.)

In most cases, legal notices are ignored, but try to argue a case for 
removing them and you will have problems, as demonstrated by the people
who post to this list with long confidentiality notices.

I personally find the increasing use of them on the internet an annoyance,
but they are not going to go away short of universal legislation that
implies them into every email and web page.  Actually most web sites seem
to limit themselves to a statement that there are legal conditions and a
link to the full text.

Received on Saturday, 14 June 2003 08:08:24 UTC