The Better Business Bureau (BBB), a US organisation that offers
dispute resolution and advisory services for businesses, is
objecting to another business information organisation deep linking
to its web site.
Deep linking is where one site links to a page on another site,
bypassing its home page. The BBB has approached Bizmove.com, a
publisher of management information, and requested that it removes
all links to BBB resources, stating that such links may Bizmove.com
has refused to remove the links and said it plans to continue deep
linking.
BBB lawyers claim that the links provide access to copyrighted
materials that Bizmove.com requires permission to use. However, no
lawsuit has been brought and BBB representatives said this is
unlikely.
Deep linking has proved to be a contentious area of law. Sites
often earn advertising revenue based on traffic to their home
pages. If the pages are bypassed, the revenue is lost. There can
also be situations where it is not obvious to the site visitor that
they are leaving one site and entering another.
In a recent case in Germany, on-line recruitment agency
Stepstone successfully sued a rival recruitment agency to stop it
deep linking to Stepstone job adverts, basing its claim on European
database regulations.
