[thelist] Smart Tag Not

[found at warmonger.net]

On Jun 15 12:27, "Raymond Camden" <jedimaster at macromedia.com> wrote:
>
> Subject: RE: [thelist] Smart Tag Not
>
> I would love to know why I have to 'opt out' on my web site. Shouldn't MS be
> making it so that people have to opt in? I guess that would be crazy.

I think this "smart linking" nonsense is going to be what (finally) brings class action suits about.  It's bad enough that people take voluntary requests for visiting 'bot behavior (robots.txt) and claim it as republication permission
for copyrighted material.  Now MS wants to commender other people's property (content) for their own economic uses.  

I'm sorry if this seems extreme to some... I'm not even talking about my personal sites though.  I work for a state judiciary.  Imagine this:

* A racist site/organization pays for "smart links" stemming from diversity statements on our official Judicial website.  (Every ethnic term pointing to specific hate material)

* A construction company pays to have state supreme court judges names "smart link" to their web site, thereby implying an endorsement for their firm for state contracts.

* A legal firm pays to have "smart links" from our family law section (or any
law section) to their firm, thereby implying they can provide special consideration in a plaintiff's/defendant's case.

* A toy company pays to have the title of our kids section link to their christmas sales site.  (I don't even want to think how COPPA would handle that.)

Our web team works hard to keep us from appearing to endorse any company through linking.  They also seek to keep us from being only one or two links away from sex sites.  However, MS's current plans would eliminate all that *without* our consent.


I understand how "smart links" could be helpful.  But MS doesn't seem to swift when it comes to implementing them.