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Online Publisher Blocks LinuxToday Referrals
Posted by
timothy
on Sun Mar 21, 2004 03:59 PM
from the right-to-free-linkage dept.
from the right-to-free-linkage dept.
MadChicken writes "This weekend, LinuxToday found that their link to an article was blocked by CMP Media LLC (publishers of Information Week). The editorial with full details is here. Could this have impact on other online news sites?"
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Online Publisher Blocks LinuxToday Referrals
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Why bother (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why bother (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it won't. Start blocking links and people will stop coming to your site. Instead they'll go to a similar competing site. There are extemely few sites that are so blindingly original that similar information can't be found elsewhere. This is especially true of corporate-driven websites.
Does This Mean.... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://jackslash.blogspot.com/)
Re:Does This Mean.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Wouldn't that solve the problem?
Re:Does This Mean.... (Score:5, Informative)
yes. that would solve the problem.
in mozilla you can set the network.http.sendRefererHeader value to 0.
or just open the link in a new tab.
Can do this in Opera, too (Score:5, Informative)
(Last Journal: Thursday August 15 2002, @11:38PM)
Use the quick menu: Just hit F12, then 'f'. (on v6.03 at least)
I can see lots of uses for this. You can use this to hide where you're coming from, such as clicking on info links from BitTorrent repositories of questionable nature. Or when trying to get through to sites who have blocked access via Referrer from Slashdot.
From the online docs [opera.com]:
"
Disabling referrer logging
Do you want Opera to send information referring to the page from where the document or picture was requested?
If you enable this option in File > Preferences > Privacy, Web servers can store information about the site that you last visited before you jumped to the current one. This allows webmasters to analyze how people find their way to his website.
Disable this option if..."
[Remainder of text deleted to fit within fair-use guidelines. Ahem.]
It would wreak havoc on the spirit of the internet to have user-definable Referrer fields, though...
-j.
Retype or Copy & Paste does that for one-shots (Score:5, Informative)
(Last Journal: Wednesday March 02 2005, @11:08PM)
On the other hand, some websites that don't like deep linking will only show you their deeper pages if you DO have a REFERER set from one of their other pages - so you have to go in through the front door. That's one reason you might not want to block REFERER permanently.
Re:Retype or Copy & Paste does that for one-sh (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://dev/null)
To make the referer the actual link that you are going to, ie, if i clink on foo.com on slashdot make the referer foo.com in mozilla errr firebird errr firefox errr anything else they might like to rename their fine product too.
Re:Retype or Copy & Paste does that for one-sh (Score:4, Informative)
(http://www.phoenyx.net/ | Last Journal: Sunday December 26 2004, @11:50PM)
Privoxy does this, and it's pretty handy. As a webmaster, I hate it (seeing how users navigate around helps me improve the site), but as a user, I like hiding my referer [sic], because I know as a webmaster I point and laugh at the wacky search terms people use.
Here, lemme demonstrate... in the past 24 hours, I've gotten hits from "why I like cooking", "how do i get interested in stuff", and "how do you spell fiance". (Yeah, ask.com always gets the best Stupid User Queries. I should go see if they run a ticker like Google does (used to?))
Re:Does This Mean.... (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://svanstrom.org/)
Re:Does This Mean.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Employing some form of anti-slashdot mechanism is entirely justified: the issue here is that you're legitimately addressing an economic/cost/resource problem (although, your approach is a little weak: you should employ some form of request rate limiting as the slashdot effect can occur from other sources). You have a right to do this.
However, simply blocking references by origin with no specific justification, especially when that origin is pursing a similar field of operation sounds very anti-trust: i.e. refusal to supply.
Re:Does This Mean.... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://svanstrom.org/)
I do this simply because I want to control what a person has read before visiting certain information, like forcing them to read a warning/explanatory text before viewing statistics about something. Without that explanatory text it might be possible that people are going to misinterpret the data; but I don't have to force them to read my warning if I know that the site doing the deeplinking are good at explaining the data to the reader...
Hmm.... (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Kjella
Re:Hmm.... (Score:4, Informative)
(http://www.inerciasensorial.com.br/ | Last Journal: Friday February 10 2006, @07:29AM)
Marketing ploy ? (Score:5, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Friday April 27 2007, @02:20PM)
So, what gain can there be ? Does the process of having an outcry against you, then acquiescing to public demand (becoming a 'good guy' again) give you a sufficiently high profile that it's worth losing some page-views temporarily ? I think that it might....
Simon the cynic.
Re:Marketing ploy ? (Score:4, Interesting)
1) Malice
2) Incompetence.
I doubt it's 1) because they are not blocking links from newsforge. Of course maybe somebody over there got pissed off at linux today for some weird reason but it seems unlikely given the "cut off my nose to spite my face" nature of it.
That leaves us with 2). Somebody made a mistake and blocked the wrong referrer.
I am sure somebody who works at CMP will post an explanation here before the conspiracy theories start flying.
Not All Readers are alike (Score:5, Insightful)
I only state this hypothetically. I doubt that information week has collected such statistics. I even doubt that sufficient statistics could be collected to accurately identify a group of users so unlikely to click on an ad to make the almost free cost of serving a page too high.
For other types of services, like ones which are more bandwidth heavy, I can see this being a more legitimate response.
Re:Not All Readers are alike (Score:4, Funny)
Just how does add revenue work?
To sum it up ... (Score:5, Funny)
2. $
3. ???
4. $$$$$
Re:its thier site (Score:5, Insightful)
1. counterproductive, since they're just refusing traffic. AFAIK linuxtoday wasn't publishing a copy (which I could see being argued as theft
2. pointless, since the people that are reading these types of articles might have a better idea of how the web works than the publisher apparently does, and realize that by simply copy and pasting the URL into the address bar (or by blocking their browser's reporting of HTTP referer) they can read the article without hitting the useless block.
Re:its thier site (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://integramod.tripod.com/)
If you want to make a big website, fill it up with content, and then keep it a total secret so no one can see it, you have every right to do that. But what's the point of that? Most of these places make money from advertising, and no advertiser is going to pay you if you don't have any readers.
Re:its thier site (Score:5, Insightful)
Of COURSE they can block whomever they want. Unless you're replying to a post that is advocating bringing a lawsuit, passing a new law to prohibit referral blocking or bringing in the National Guard to stop them from referral blocking, then what on earth is the point of your post? Yes, they can block whomever they want, and I can utilize my freedom of speech to point out that they're being stupid and will lose any business they may have gotten from me if they keep such a lame policy in place.
Freedom to take an action does not mean freedom from the responsibility of that action, it simply means that neither the government or anyone else can use force to prevent you from taking the action. As I have yet to see a post advocating using force to change their policy, your post is completely inane.
Slander vs. fair use. (Score:5, Informative)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Friday November 18 2005, @06:15PM)
On a wider scale, we have seen large corporate entities go to great lengths to prevent fair use. The RIAA and MPAA have redefined fair use and put copy protection into place to prevent fair use copying and backup. Broadcasters will have a "flag" in HDTV broadcasts that tells digital recording devices whether a broadcast can be recorded. Software companies have long fought against fair use. I just bought Unreal Tournament 2004. It uses a form of copy protection and, on top of that, requires that a "Play CD" be in the drive. You can't back up that CD using normal methods and you're hosed if it gets damaged or lost. (There were cracks out the next day, but 99% of people will never know about the cracks.)
We need laws protecting fair use before large corporations effectively quash it. Should CMP be allowed to "punish" a site for exercising their fair use rights to excerpt? I see both sides of this one, but, given the big picture of corporations deciding to prevent fair use, I have to side with LinuxToday.
Re:Slander vs. fair use. (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Friday November 18 2005, @06:15PM)
You are, of course, correct.
At any rate, I don't think they have libeled LinuxToday -- the claim that LT is not authorized to redistribute the content is not defamatory, it's merely incorrect.
CMP's statement implies that the content is beyond what would constitute fair use -- for otherwise, CMP would have no legal right to require 'authorization' its use.
Defamation usually requires that you know that the information is incorrect, and you intend to cause harm by publishing it.
From a legal standpoint, I'll refer to the University of Houston's web pages on "media libel." [uh.edu]
"Actual Malice is what plaintiffs in the public eye have to prove in order to win a libel case. Actual malice is the act of publishing or broadcasting statements with prior knowledge of the inaccuracy of the statement or a reckless disregard for the truth."
The highlighting is mine. CMP's actions show a "reckless disregard for the truth" since LinuxToday has apparently been very careful to assure that their excerpts fall under fair use.
Re:its thier site (Score:4, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Monday April 03 2006, @07:23PM)
No.
They can try to block whomever they want. That does not mean the same as saying they "can" block such people.
A number of simple workarounds exist, such as disabling referrers in your browser altogether; simply cutting-and-pasting the URL into your browser's URL bar; using a fake referrer that almost everyone accepts (such as Google); or my personal favorite, always use a page as its own referrer (I've seen a few sites the first two will break, and can imagine some that might block Google, but never a site that will block itself).
In any case, this has little to do with "can" and "cannot". It has to do with the very nature of the web, and the idea of fair-use. The web exists as links. Blocking some of them hurts everyone on the web, not just one or two sites. As for "unauthorized", sorry, but if you run a web site without some form of password protection, you have implicitly "authorized" the entire world to visit, like it or not.
I do need to question the sanity of a site, which derives its revenues from banner ad views, choosing to reduce the number of ad views. But that doesn't matter beyond "how stupid can people get?". Let them shoot themselves in the wallet, doesn't much matter to me. But preventing me from seeing their site, just because I only learned about it from a meta-news site? That I most certainly do care about!
Oh, damn that the publicity! (Score:5, Funny)
(Last Journal: Saturday May 01 2004, @04:37AM)
So, which brilliant head of marketing thought "hey, they're linking to our pages, giving us free publicity... the bastards, block 'em!"
Good job, Jimmy!
ROTFL.
Damn all this traffic! (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.kelseyandpaul.com/)
What is going on .... (Score:5, Insightful)
JavaScript Bypass? (Score:3, Informative)
Slashdot should also be taking note of this, I relised this could happen a few months ago.
Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sweet Irony. (Score:5, Funny)
Well, it IS their right ... (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://mclarenhome.com/~dougmc/)
We've (well, many others and I) have always said that if you don't want people linking to you, configure your web server to block it -- it's not difficult. CMP has done this.
But even though they have the right to do something, that doesn't mean that they should. I don't know anymore more about this story than the LinuxToday editorial, but after reading it, I definately believe that LinuxToday did nothing wrong (what they did certainly does fall under the category of `Fair Use'), and reacted accordingly when they discovered the block -- except that I saw no mention of CMP being contact. Perhaps they were contacted and it just didn't make it into the editorial, but if not, they should have been. It could have just been a misunderstanding or misconfiguration, though the message seen does suggest otherwise.
I predict that CMP will change their configuration shortly, probably due in large part to the LinuxToday editorial and this /. article. We'll see if I'm right ...
Solution for mozzy/firebird users (Score:5, Informative)
(Last Journal: Thursday September 09 2004, @09:38PM)
user_pref("network.http.sendRefererHeader", 0);
No more referers sent.
Re:Solution for mozzy/firebird users (Score:5, Informative)
Mozilla 1.6 bypass instructions. (Score:5, Informative)
(http://eff.org/ | Last Journal: Wednesday December 29 2004, @12:13AM)
2. Set 'network.http.sendRefererHeader' to 0
3. Enjoy.
This simply kills off the referer tag from being sent and lets you through. While it's very unlikely this will cause problems, some web sites might not work w/o the tag.
Actually.... (Score:5, Informative)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Actually, quite a few use this as leech-protection, in order to prevent external direct links to downloads. Privoxy does this the smart way - it forges a referrer header from whatever site you're loading. If I follow a link to say, CNN, they will see "www.cnn.com" as the referrer.
Kjella
Grilled cheese for brains. (Score:5, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Friday May 06 2005, @02:21PM)
It is unfathomable to me that someone would block incoming traffic to an article on their website. Maybe redirect the visitor to the home if it's that necessary to force people to come in through the "front door," as it were, but to make the visitor feel like he's intruding somehow... that just seems pretty dumb to me.
Website operators need to think about how what they do is perceived by visitors, the same way hotel operators and shopping mall operators think about it. Don't make visitors feel unwelcome, for Pete's sake!
Mozilla needs referrer circumvention! (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, in mozilla you can turn of referrer all together, but that is not good enough, because then they can simpyl start blocking access to deep pages when there is no referrer (this will create problems for instance for emailed links, but I know some sites do it (porn...)).
So mozilla needs to go further to assist it's users, rather than be party restrictions on them. My software should serve me, and me alone. Here is what it needs:
- Always set "Referrer" to the root of the host.
- Always set "Referrer" to one directory above the current page.
- And, most importantly, support for an html extension where the "a" tag (or any other, now that other things can be links) has a parameter that tells the browser referrer to use. So that Mozilla could be set to respect links like this:
<a href="http://slashdot.org" referrer="http://www.google.com">
and then set the HTTP referrer field accordingly. That way the browser would not betraying me my providing the source of my link to the destination site, so that they can use it against me.
Re:Mozilla needs referrer circumvention! (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the source of a link might be private information or might
reveal an otherwise private information source, it is strongly
recommended that the user be able to select whether or not the
Referer field is sent. For example, a browser client could have a
toggle switch for browsing openly/anonymously, which would
respectively enable/disable the sending of Referer and From
information.
As far as I know, no browser contains a GUI dialog for toggling "referer". Not even the "privacy" pain discusses it at all. In Galeon at least, it can be turned off by using middle button and opening in a new tab, which sends no "referer" in the HTTP request. I don't remember if this goes for mozilla too.
Re:Mozilla needs referrer circumvention! (Score:5, Informative)
MultiZilla (http://multizilla.mozdev.org) provides just such a GUI. Granted, it is not built-in to Mozilla, which is what you were referring to, but it does provide the function.
Re:Mozilla needs referrer circumvention! (Score:4, Informative)
(http://www.earlymiser.com/)
http://refspoof.mozdev.org
It's functional. To install it you just have to go to http://refspoof.mozdev.org and follow the Install link. (you must do that with Mozilla RC3+ as browser). it should install automatically.
Unbelievably stupid - why not just put up ads??? (Score:4, Insightful)
But having these referral sites, I have been introduced to news sites that I would never have thought to go to. From slashdot, I now regularly scan through cnet's site, etc.
why not take advantage of the extra eyeballs and put more targetted advertising? Ads are the only thing keeping these content sites anyway... This to me would be the smarter business decision, instead of just blocking people from viewing free content. Why not put up an ad from Redhat or Microsoft whenever a viewer comes from LinuxJournal???
This is a mark of a stupid business person.
If I were an advertiser... (Score:3, Interesting)
= 9J =
You want links if you want to be in Google (Score:5, Interesting)
Why speculate? There might be a good reason (Score:4, Informative)
But even if it is intentional, it is totally within their rights to set up their servers any way they see fit.
Get the facts before you complain (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://picknit.com/ | Last Journal: Saturday July 29 2006, @03:58PM)
(No, don't respond to this post telling me why these things can't be true. Arguing about what it could be is just as stupid as the original assumption as to what it is. This is like arguing about what time it is, when the real question should be "Who's got a watch?")
Plus it's dumb to assume that IW did this without attempting to contact LT. Maybe the LT email server is broken? The message got discarded by an spam filter? The recipient discarded it without reading it? Happens all the time.
When you have a problem like this, you should work with the other party to solve it. If they refuse to cooperate or explain, then you have something to complain about. Going immediately into crusade mode based on total ignorance is childish.
Re:Get the facts before you complain (Score:5, Informative)
A childish as, say, posting a rant without having read the linked article first?
Re:Get the facts before you complain (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.cs.utah.edu/~andersbr/)
Here's what we do know:
1: Links from LT to stories on IW result in a message about unauthorized content distribution.
2: Many online publishers consider deep linking a form of copyright violation.
3: #1 is precisely what one would expect to happen when a publisher from #2 decides to act upon that belief.
4: Referrer blocks don't just set themselves up.
The people at LT are still investigating why it happened, and they haven't ruled out an error. But from the evidence gathered so far, it doesn't look like an error; it looks like a shortsighted attempt by the publisher to control how its content is distributed.
devil's advocate post to cost of blocking (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally I don't block adds at all (well I refuse to install annoying ad showing software like that flash crap) and will actually click on ads for sites I like. However, I know countless people who not only block ads to leech off sites for free, but seem proud of doing so. Anyway, my point was simply that with the number of people who do this rising, being selective about who you waste bandwidth (which can be quite costly for large sites) on isn't necessarily a losing prospect anymore.
Re:I'd Be Worried (Score:5, Informative)
Bank Systems & Technology
BioMechanics
C/C++ Users Journal
Call Center
CMP Books
Communications Convergence
CRN
DB2 Magazine
Diagnostic Imaging
Diagnostic Imaging Asia Pacific
Diagnostic Imaging Europe
Diagnostic Imaging SCAN
Dr. Dobb's Journal
DV Magazine
EE Times
Embedded Systems Programming Magazine
Game Developer
Geriatric Times
InformationWeek
Insurance & Technology
Intelligent Enterprise Magazine
MSDN Magazine
Network Computing
Network Magazine
Optimize
Psychiatric Times
Software Development
SysAdmin
Technology & Learning
Transform Magazine
VARBusiness
Wall Street & Technology
Windows Developer Network
Xtreme Video
Several of which many SlashDot'ers probably read.
From time-to-time, I've gotten several of them. CMP is decidedly uneven -- some of their rags are good, some are woefully clueless. My personal assesment is that their management is mostly clueless, except for being able to sell advertising and bring those dollars to the bottom line.
So, while I agree with "I'd be worried, except that it is CMP media"... I think your characterization of them as entertainment media needs to be clarified as the sarcasm that it is.
In any case, their "please don't send me traffic" attitude is clueless.
Politics or Money (Score:3, Insightful)
If you assume the only reasons for a Corporation (or Government) to not do something is politics or money the answer becomes (IMHO) a bit clearer
Since news of this blocking will spread amongst the Linux websites, it can't be providing good politics for TechWeb (I assume this to be source of the linked article). Advertisers will question why traffic is purposely being blocked and will reduce their custom accordingly.
The only remaining possiblity is that UBM Plc (the parent parent company) thinks that there's money in this scheme.
There are three methods of obtaining revenue from a news website. The first is selling advertisments (and the registration information if any). The referral blocking has effectively ruled this out as a method here.
The remaining methods, subscription and reselling, might be the answer. UBM resells its news stories through B2B channels
PR Newswire provides comprehensive communications services for public relations and investor relations professionals....news and information distribution to global audiences, and communications monitoring and measurement.
(I would link, but it's framed and hidden, it comes from the UBM plc website). They also claim to be the leading US B2B media company.
Taken the path of least intelligence. The reason LinuxToday was blocked is either the CMP wire customers are complaining or some CMP subscription service is suffering because of the ease of getting the information via a 3rd party aggregator. Why 'pay' for access to the NY Times and the Washington Post when Google will aggregate the important stories for you?
It could of course be more complicated, involving low click-through rates or ad-impressions for LT referrals, but the blocking message implies there are 'authorised redistributers' of the content.
bb
CMP Media Spam (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Monday January 31 2005, @05:48PM)
The perfect referer (Score:4, Funny)
Referer:http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=nav
Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (Score:5, Interesting)
Generally most sites welcome incoming traffic (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.turnstyle.com/)
I see this all the time when people want to stop "leeching." Clearly this isn't a "leeching" situation, but rather a "deep linking" situation, but isn't it the right of the site-op to just redirect referrers from outside?
Re:Generally most sites welcome incoming traffic (Score:5, Insightful)
This is simply a referal. You know what URLs are designed for. What the entire web is designed to do. Provide links from one document to another and all that.
The problem with mirrors (Score:3, Informative)
Mirroring a site without written permission from the copyright holder(s) is a clear violation of copyright, while simply linking to the site is not. My bet is that if LinuxToday had mirrored the articles they'd be looking at a lawsuit from CMP instead of just being blocked. Mirrors just aren't a practical solution against a slashdotting under the current circumstances because there's no real time to get the required permission to set them up.