[thelist] More Smart Tags

[martin.p.burns at uk.pwcglobal.com]

Memo from Martin P Burns of PricewaterhouseCoopers

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I'm wondering whether the more effective legal avenue
is one of intellectual property - the right to not have your IP
changed by a third party without your permission.

HTML is very clearly covered by IP, and I would strongly expect
that the links (or lack thereof) is part of your expression.

Therefore, adding links to your web pages without your explicit
permission (ie you would need to opt *in* to the concept, and
even then would probably have right of veto over links (or at least
categories of links) added) could very much be intepreted as a
IP dispute.

Hell, if sites feel the need to lawyer-approve *incoming* links
(ie links on other sites which don't change the site in question,
only its context) what's the comfort factor with changing the actual
presentation of the site?

Also, will the underlines be amenable to CSS control? Otherwise
it could end up f-ugly. And if a third party wants to make my site
f-ugly, that's another IP issue.

Cheers
Martin





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Subject:  RE: [thelist] More Smart Tags


OK, so we're obliged to add a proprietary meta tag for every browser
that decides they want to mess with our content?

It seems to me (as well as others more versed in law than anyone on
this list is likely to be) that this smart tag idea (as we understand
it) is a blatant abuse of monopoly power.




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