Poynter.org - Jim Romenesko's Media News

A rep from Belo, the Dallas Morning News publisher writes to Romenesko:

I just want to clarify that Belo is not on a crusade against deep linking. We understand as well as any media company, or any Web user, the benefits of deep linking. However, deep linking without Belo's permission is a violation of DallasNews.com's terms of service, and in specific instances -- a small number of instances -- we seek to enforce these terms. I think if you look at many other content sites, you will see terms of service that are not dissimilar.

Someone with an electronic publishing background like Jeff Jarvis or Ken Layne would be better able than I to address this, but I'll give it a try.

As the flack notes, the terms of service do include a prohibition on deep linking. But as he also notes, it's not normally enforced. My understanding -- I am not a legal expert, but an interested layman -- is that that sort of selective enforcement is frowned upon. If they allow people to do something for years, even if it's supposedly not allowed, they can't start enforcing it all of the sudden. And they certainly can't simply enforce it against people they don't like. Moreover, it's a stupid policy, and is quite possibly illegal anyway. And if they really wanted to, DaMN could easily keep deep links from working at all. That they aren't indicates that what they're really interested in is smacking down someone they don't like.