Cingular and Verizon Are Full of It
Jason Lee Miller, WebProNews

You would think that questions about linking to a website, or more
specifically, what you're allowed to say when linking, would have
been put to rest. But that's not true for Cingular or for Verizon
Wireless, who think they have a right to control your hyperlink
anchor text and where you link on their public sites.

Chalk this one up to lawyers trying to justify their billable
hours as major corporations try to control everything you say,
see, and do. It may be time for a virtual Bill of Rights
beginning with the same freedom of speech (freedom of linking)
protections the original gave us.

The Founding Fathers couldn't have fathomed such technology, but
you can bet they'd be appalled at the limits on freedom in which
the government-corporate cabal is regularly engaged.

This text appears on Cingular's website:

"Links to the Sites. You are granted a limited, nonexclusive right
to create a hypertext link to the homepage of the Sites, provided
such link does not portray Cingular Wireless or any of its
products and services in a false, misleading, derogatory, or
otherwise defamatory manner... This limited right may be revoked
at any time."

So in effect, Cingular asserts that you can't say anything bad
about them and link to their site. If you wanted to say Cingular
charges too much for their services (which is an opinion and
protected speech) and wanted to link to them, that would be in
violation of how you are allowed to talk about them.

The arbitrary nature of the word "derogatory" leaves quite a bit
of room for interpretation. For example, if I said Cingular's
parent company AT&T had monopolistic practices and is blowing
smoke about their support of Net Neutrality, is that derogatory,
my opinion, or both? It shouldn't matter. I should be (am) allowed
to say it and point to any public forum.

The language that follows in that legal statement just aggravates
the egregiousness of it through blatant not-good-for-the-gander
hypocrisy:

"Cingular Wireless makes no claim or representation regarding,
and accepts no responsibility for, the quality, content, nature,
or reliability of third-party Web sites or services accessible by
hyperlink from the Sites, or third-party Web sites linking to the
Sites."

In other words, you're responsible for your linking, but Cingular
is not responsible for its own. If Cingular links to a site with
malicious code and you get a virus that destroys your computer,
you're on your own. But if you say Cingular sucks and link to
them, they say that's not allowed.

While those are some pretty bold assertions, Verizon Wireless
takes it to another level of audacity. Verizon's requirements
for linking include:

* You must link only to our homepage, and not to pages within
the site itself.
* The Verizon Wireless name must not be associated with
unfair, deceptive or libelous advertising or commentary or
used in any way that will tend to injure or compromise our
professional reputation and corporate identity and policies.
* Your text hyperlink must include the following company name:
Verizon Wireless. No stylization is permitted.

There aren't many options for linking to anything but the
homepage, as, even if you want general information you have to
enter some personal details to access other pages. That could be
construed perhaps as a non-public page.

But again, a word like "unfair" is a bit arbitrary, and by that
language, it's unclear if "commentary" is linked with the
preceding adjectives or stands on its own.

Can I say Verizon damages its own reputation by overcharging for
text messaging? Is that unfair commentary? What if I think Verizon
damages its own reputation by trying to tell everybody what can be
said about them?

Can I say Verizon's full of it? Would I have to prove it in a
court of law?

The way I see it, anything published on the World Wide Web in
plain view (without any type of access control) is in public.
That doesn't apply to copyrighted content, it applies to what
you can point out.

If, on the street, someone was asked for directions to Maggie's
Irish Restaurant, could Maggies require, or, if you use some of
the above language, allow that person to point down the road to
the restaurant's location only if they say "Maggie's is at 111
St. Patrick Street and Irish food isn't as bad as it sounds"?

Now we're just getting persnickety.

Limits on to whom you can link and what you can say about the
entity to whom you are linking are violations of fundamental
rights. It's too bad that this day in age, that free speech
still has to be spelled out.

Cingular sucks dick.

VeRiZon sucks dick.

At worst, I'd get a cease and desist letter.

Fun Fact: Verizon and Cingular's idiotic attempts to control what's said about them in hyperlinks is most likely a reactionary move against Google Bombing, a now-dead SEO trick. Google would incorporate the description text in hyperlinks into its information on webpages and for a long time, there was no algorithm that took a page's relevance into account. Thus, if you and bunch of your friends started linking to Disneyland.com as "Gay Fetish Club", Disneyland.com would start to show up in the search results for "Gay Fetish Club", even though none of those words appear nowhere on the Disneyland homepage. The most famous example of this the term "Miserable Failure" which bloggers linked to George W. Bush's official bio at WhiteHouse.gov. Google has since cracked down on the practice and it doesn't work anymore. Too bad... I coulda been the #1 result for pop culture.