Re: link to us: Is there a recommendation to provide a graphic for external linking? if so where?

> As with words, image meaning is certainly context-dependant, and
** in many cases assume prior knowledge by the target audience in order
** to be inequivocably understood. Company logos such as the McDonalds
** golden arches are certainly easier to recognise, but that's only because
** they are logos, copyrighted/trademarked/whatever...so it's less likely
** that designers will use them for anything other than something to do
** with the company (or risk a law suit, perhaps). For everyday things,

More precisely, anything other than a reference to the company which
has been authorised (normally in writing) by the company, is likely
to attract the lawyers; it will do so even if the use is inoccuous,
as that is the only way to defend against sites that you would not
want to use it (even to reference you) using it.

The use of *any* symbol for a company, developed by that company, is
likely to be treated as a trademark by their lawyers.  This may be the
reason why favicons, which seem to represent a de-facto implementation of
a link to me graphic, are not more widely used by companies.  (favicon is
implemented by a link element as well as by the rather unpopular one,
with site operators, of a reserved URL local part).

I think some companies would like to be able to treat home page URLs
as trademarks in this respect, and many would like to impose restrictions
on deep links.

Companies in coutries that permitted "cookie-like" features without
explicit informed consent (I believe the UK is not longer in this
category) might well want any use of their image to be sourced from
thier site, so that they could track usage of referring sites using
Referrer headers on requests.  Others would want this to ensure that
only the standard version of the trademark is ever used.

Received on Monday, 19 January 2004 16:52:49 UTC