Re: TAG ISSUE-25 deep linking

Dan, 

if we accept that linking is speech, this has several consequences. Surely 
enough, linking itself participates in the protection of free speech. But 
there are also links that do not participate in protection. Namely if we have 
a smoke-screen page that is only there to carry a link to a page with 
otherwise prohibited content. So the assertions in its entirety are to be 
taken into account.

What we can make clear here is that there would have to be absolutely 
extraordinary circumstances that one would allow a content provider on the web 
to prohibit linking to his content. We should make clear that putting content 
on the web triggers the absolutely common expectation that such content can be 
linked to. It is a TAG statement of relevance to say that linking is a 
socially common, expected and useful behavior on the web and prohibitions by 
(civil) third parties is against all expectations and usages on the Web.

But I wanted to draw your attention also to the "URI" part of linking. In this 
case, links may be a pure technical issue. In a statement, we may hint to the 
fact that links can be very important for functionality and thus would need 
some privileges, even if some other content at the end of the pointer may not 
be protected.

Best, 

Rigo

On Tuesday 12 April 2011 16:07:48 Appelquist, Daniel, VF-Group wrote:
> This makes a lot of sense and aligns well with the argument Jeni and I are
> trying to tease out of the draft document we are putting together on this
> topic: http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/publishingAndLinkingOnTheWeb.html
> 
> In essence, it we would like to make the assertion that linking is a form
>  of speech, and so should be protected in the same way that speech is
>  protected.
>

Received on Tuesday, 12 April 2011 16:20:07 UTC