Is about a handful enough?
It's hard to know just what you're looking for, or how to find it. The vast majority
of references to "illegal linking", for instance, tell us about deep
linking related cases. I discussed deep linking about two
and a half years ago, and though here as well I think that it exemplifies
a misunderstanding of how the web works, it's a distinctly different problem than
the guilt by association of hyperlinking.
One of the more common results from a search for hyperlink and guilt
is what's probably generically called a Hyperlink Disclaimer, like this
one from a hospital web site:
We accept no responsibility for the content of any website to which this site may
hyperlink. Hyperlinks are provided for convenience only and a link does not imply
an endorsement of any site.
There seem to be a couple thousand disclaimers of this sort out there. Considering
the vastness of the web, a couple thousand aren't really that many. In other words,
there are many more sites that don't see the need to make a disclaimer of this
sort than there are that do.
After rather extensive searching on a number of different phrases, I seem to have
found two additional examples. One
of these is an example of an educational institution being fearful of the
links that exist on the university server (and later realizing that simply linking
to a site doesn't mean endorsement of the politics of the organization being linked
to). The other, like the
Al-Hussayan case, is related to the Patriot Act. As with Al-Hussayen, the trial
that took place this time also seems to be a case
of over-zealous prosecution.
There don't seem to be many people who even discuss this issue as a general problem.
One person who has, in an article from December of 2000, is Andy Oram, from the
O'Reilly group. The fact that his
article is from so long ago suggests that even if back then this seemed to
be developing into an issue, ultimately it didn't. Oram wrote:
Another, very different, form of pressure restricts
the right to link by making the linker party to some illegal act. In Germany,
several years ago, a court told a political activist to take down a link to
an anarchist site carrying such material as instructions for derailing trains.
Once again, the court treated a link in a way it could not have treated a reference
in a publication. The person making a link was tarred with the guilt of the
site to which the link was made. Recent cases in France and Germany regarding
Nazi material have focused on the site hosting the material, but the same laws
could easily be deployed against sites simply making links to the material.
But from there he goes on to a discussion of the posting of decoding encryption
keys for DVDs. Though this is definitely a related issue when it comes to the
law, it's different in terms of questions of guilt by association.
Go to: But not necessarily internet related, or
Go to: It's not exactly Rashamon, but ...,
or
Go to: Guilt by hyperlink?