Mon. Aug 16, 2004
IOC Hyperlink idIOCy
One of the sideline sports at every Olympics is the “IOC idIOCy Competition.” And I think we have an early favorite:
For your protection and ours we have established a procedure for parties wishing to introduce a link to the ATHENS 2004 website on their site. By introducing a link to the ATHENS 2004 official Website on your site you are agreeing to comply with the ATHENS 2004 Website General Terms and Conditions. In order to place a link embedded in copy interested parties should:
a) Use the term ATHENS 2004 only, and no other term as the text referent
b) Not associate the link with any image, esp. the ATHENS 2004 Emblem (see paragraph below)
c) Send a request letter to the Internet Department stating:
* Short description of site
* Reason for linking
* Unique URL containing the link (if no unique URL than just the main URL)
* Publishing period
* Contact point (e-mail address)Once the request has been mailed, interested parties can proceed to include the link and will only receive a response if ATHENS 2004 does not accept the link.
First off (once you get over giggling about “For your protection…”), they’ve got the web equivalent of a shrink-wrap software licence. By simply linking to their site, they claim you are bound by their “Website General Terms and Conditions.” Well, I linked the official site days ago, unaware of this policy, and used to “proper form” only by sheer coincidence. Thank the Olympic Deities, or else I might have tarnished the Virginal Olympic Image by linking with some lowly words like “official site” (Oops).
I also was unaware of Clause “C” of our “contract,” and failed to snail mail a letter requesting permission to link a site on the world wide web. I suppose with an $8 billion budget, hyperlinks@athens2004.com would have been too much to ask. And I’m sure the enforcement of this clause is quite time effective (send a letter … to Greece, place the link, and they’ll let you know at some indeterminate time in the future that they don’t approve, at which point you can hop in your time machine and undo the damage).
According to the above policy, I cannot point you to the page containing the above policy, without using the words ATHENS 2004, and those words only. So I suppose I could tell you that the … ATHENS 2004 ... web site has an asinine hyperlink policy, that only the clueless would have bothered to publish on the web.
However, I’m going to try and take them at their word. Now that I’m aware of the contract I didn’t sign, I’m going to do my best not to link the official site at all after today. Using any words. And that’s fine, because as I pointed out Sunday in “Olympic Blogging Comes of Age,” there are plenty of other sites to visit, and … “One way or another, technology will eventually overrule the will of the IOC. Perhaps, one blog at a time.”
Published 04:26PM, Mon, Aug 16 2004
Category: Olympics
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Peanut Gallery
Thanks for the link, Gary. As for your other question, I don’t know exactly what to say. I’ve written before about how I believe site owners own all the content at their URL, comments and all. And I was pointing out the flaws in the whole concept of a religious war in late 2001 ... more than once (that one holds up damn well, if I say so myself). Here we are nearly three years later still arguing the same point.
In the final analysis, I think the best thing we can do is assign the appropriate weight to the comment threads in any weblog (meaning, less than the weight of your pinky nail), but most especially those (on both sides) that attract the extremists, blowhards, and know-littles. I think it’s a real mistake to view them as “representative.” As a matter of fact, at many sites I think it’s a real mistake to view them … at all.
That’s why I’m spending 16 days wallowing in the Olympics, rather than The Same Old Uglies. You feel (and smell) a lot better. And there’s a whole post-convention Presidential campaign left for that kind of wallowing.
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I’d be curious what you think of this, by the way.