Update on CMP's link-blocking
Fredric Paul, Editor in Chief of CMP's TechWeb.com, says the company is very concerned about any links to their sites being blocked from Google News or other sites accidentally, and asks anyone who comes across more examples to pass it on so they can be investigated and fixed.
In a phone conversation today, he also emphasized again that the site only means to block links from sites it feels are unfairly using its content -- in particular, LinuxToday, TechTarget and Cnet.
CMP is now using a new page to intercept most readers who come to its site via such links, which is very different in tone and content from the old intercept page -- and let's readers click through to CMP's articles.
Rather than focus on the legalities of fair use, it emphasizes why it thinks the way other sites are using its content is unfair.
For example, here is the message you get from CMP when you click on the following headline on Cnet: "Convergence or divergence: What's next for mobile devices? - Information Week"
Pardon The Inconvenience Dear Reader:You've reached this page because you clicked on a link to a CMP story from a competing site. Now, we have no objection to people linking to our sites. We like it. We encourage it.
But not the way some folks do it. Some sites seem to think THEY don't have to play by the rules. That they can use OUR content for their benefit. Instead of just linking to us, they reprint significant portions of OUR stories on THEIR sites. Or they create pages in-between the link and our site -- and then sell THEIR ads on that page. Or they rewrite our stories for their own sites. Only then do they bother to put a link at the bottom of THEIR page to OUR article, hoping that the link will justify their mis-appropriation of our content.
Well, it doesn't. In fact, we Internet publishers have a word for that kind of behavior. We call it: "stealing." And after we asked politely for them to stop -- and they didn't -- we've had to take the extraordinary step of intercepting these links to protect our investment in creating our unparalleled collection of technology news and information.
Click here to reach your requested content
LinuxToday wasn't happy when CMP first started doing this in March. Here's its reaction, followed by a lengthy reader discussion.
Jun 25, 2004 | E-MAIL | SAVE | PRINT | PERMALINK | DISCUSS(0)
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