Marseille edit
The practice is spread: big companies or institutions used to forbid to create a link to their site without prior authorization. "Every user or visitor of the Web site cannot set up a hyperlink in the direction of this site without the authorization and the prerequisite of Coca-Cola France services", we can read for example in the general terms of the Coca-Cola French site’s use. Some even go further, as M6, who specifies that, "failing such an authorization, a link can be considered as constituent of the counterfeiting criminal offence".
This practice is excessive and unfounded, estimates Benoît Sibaud, from April (association which promotes the free software), who maintains a list of sites practicing the "pdlsa" (no link without prior authorization). "The hypertext link is the foundation of Web, he explains. And this ban is impossible to set up: if I click a link in an instant messaging, an e-mail, or I use a service of shortening the address, it is impossible to know who has created the link." The practice is of a certain form of hypocrisy, the main suppliers of links being search engines. "I do not believe that Google requires the owner authorization of site before creating links, joked Benoît Sibaud. Yet, these companies and administrations do not block their indexation in Google, on the contrary: it is their interest to be well referenced."
However, does this ban have a legal foundation? Not directly, the lawyer Guillaume Sauvage considered the cabinet Pierrat, specialized in the intellectual property. "We cannot make anything with a hypertext link: for example, to create a pointing link to the site of a company with the words ' a brunch of crooks', it can be comparable to the defamation. But, theoretically, banning to create a link to a web site has no real legal value and does not constitute an infringement, which supposes the reproduction of the contents or representation. Only if the link is used to slander, please parasitize a site economically, allow to reach the contents by avoiding the advertising, for example, if the company can file a complaint. "
"Of course, there are cases of abuse, notes Benoît Sibaud. But these clauses remain an aberration: the only protection for companies, it is to take itself directly in the cases of infringement or defamation. "
Article of Damien Leloup - LEMONDE.FR TECHNOLOGIES on 16/10/2009