Linking to any web page on this Web site is prohibited | Hacker News Reader

Linking to any web page on this Web site is prohibited

victoriassecret.com

78 pointsfintler51 comments

> Linking to any web page on this Web site is prohibited absent our express written permission. Associating or juxtaposing our Web site or its Materials (e.g., through framing or inline linking) with advertisements and/or other information not originating from our Web site is expressly prohibited.

There are a bunch of websites with similar "restrictions".

A notable example is from the UK: The Shetland Times vs The Shetland News (http://www.linksandlaw.com/linkingcases-deeplinks.htm#Shetla... Times v. Shetland News) Mentioned on the talk page of the wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:The_Shetland_Times)

British American Tobacco is a good example of a site from a company with too many lawyers: (http://www.bat.com/group/sites/uk__3mnfen.nsf/vwPagesWebLive...)

> [...] and you may make use of the embedded share button and Email a Friend functions to share parts of this website via the particular social media networks or by email (using the Email a Friend function) as applicable. Other than as stated in these conditions of use, you may not make any part of the website available as part of another website, whether by hyperlink framing on the Internet or otherwise unless you have been authorised to do so in writing by British American Tobacco.

Guess I've just broken their TOS?

Victoria's Secret's restrictions sound like they are trying to prevent someone from making a lingerie porn site consisting of nothing but penis enlargement ads and Victoria's Secret catalog photos.

British American Tobacco may be trying to ensure they aren't liable for someone else presenting material from their site in a way that violates restrictions on tobacco advertising. When it comes to law, I'm never sure whether it's a case of too many lawyers or sensible paranoia.

To explore this idea a little further, if you download and host the lingerie porn, then this is obviously copyright infringement. But it's not clear if you only hotlink to the images, which may be what VS is trying to prevent here. Since they can't, they'd have to sue to try to enforce this license agreement.

Were I the defense attorney in that lawsuit, I'd say VS can change the URL of their images whenever they want, CDN cache invalidation notwithstanding.

Question for the lawyers:

How is it illegal to utter the words [XYZ]? A hyperlink is informational gibberish, its not a work of art in any way, not sure it should be copy-rightable (you cant copyright a public street address, for exampl). Its not a trademark (not public mark). Its not a trade-secret (once I know it). Or is it one of these things? Is this TOS some sort of confidentiality agreement?

It sounds like British American Tobacco's ToS is more about hotlinking or embedding. Note this particular portion:

> you may not make any part of the website available as part of another website, whether by hyperlink framing on the Internet or otherwise

By their use of the example of "hyperlink framing," it's obvious they mean you can't embed the site, not that you can't share links.

I'd love to know what the link between Victoria's secret and British American Tobacco is.

Both gave too much weight to the advice of their in-house counsel?

I bet they have that silly legal footer at the bottom of their outgoing email about how you have to delete the message if you aren't the intended recipient.

Enough money to spend on lawyers for weird website Terms of Use.

Same law firms?

I think the main use case both sites are trying to prevent is presenting content in frames/iframes on unauthorised web sites.

I've seen similar restrictions in other websites and I could argue that the lawyers writing these TOS are either clueless about SEO or very aware of how SEO works (I know I am citing the 2 opposite but I'm explaining why below).

Clueless about SEO: I have no idea why a website would like to limit another site from linking to it. It is counterintuitive and would likely go against the same site's SEO strategy.

Aware of how SEO works: I could argue that lawyer knows how SEO works and are just trying to cover their assess if they'll need a link removed in the future (I doubt they'll never use that clause legally against someone unless they really need to). Why would they need to? I've heard of some black hat SEO stories where certain individuals would link with a farm of sites that are either flagged or irrelevant to another site all in hope to get it flagged or down in google ranks. I'm not sure if that would work and could question the motivation of these individuals but I've even personally witnessed trackbacks and links from "porn" sites and irrelevant sites to my website and blog. These lawyers could potentially use that clause to sue that individual without having to prove there have been any damages from the links.

I would go with option A however since I'm not sure this is the case here.

Context matters hugely. Here is their full Linking section, which does not include anything from the title:

Periodically, links may be established from this Web Site to one or more external web sites or resources operated by third parties (the "Third Party Sites"). These links are provided for your convenience only. In addition, certain Third Party Sites also may provide links to this Web Site. None of such links should be deemed to imply that Victoria's Secret endorses the Third Party Sites or any content therein.

We do not control and are not responsible or liable for any Third Party Sites or any content, advertising, products, or other materials on or available through such Third Party Sites. Access to any Third Party Sites is at your own risk and we will have no liability arising out of or related to such web sites and/or their content or for any damages or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with any purchase, use of or reliance on any such content, goods, or services available on or through any such Third Party Site.

It seems fine to me. The text in the title actually is the following special section:

Special Notice

We have a no-tolerance policy regarding the use of our trademarks or names (e.g., of Victoria's Secret, Victoria's Secret Pink, or Pink Nation) in metatags and/or hidden text. Specifically, the use of our trademarks or names in metatag keywords is trademark infringement, and the use of trademarks or names in page text, metatags, and/or hidden text for purposes of gaining higher rankings from search engines is unfair competition. Linking to any web page on this Web site is prohibited absent our express written permission. Associating or juxtaposing our Web site or its Materials (e.g., through framing or inline linking) with advertisements and/or other information not originating from our Web site is expressly prohibited.

This seems quite reasonable to me. Apparently, spammers must be getting their pages higher for searches of Victoria's Secret than the site itself is at.

I think the policy is perfectly reasonable in context, and I think anyone reading this knows exactly what VS is talking about.

" Linking to any web page on this Web site is prohibited absent our express written permission. "

That still doesn't seem reasonable to me. Simply making this link: http://www.victoriassecret.com/site-terms-and-notices/ is linking to a web page on that site and I didn't, in fact, get their express written permission. Does that 'prohibition' seem reasonable?

The relevent text, for the lazy:

> We have a no-tolerance policy regarding the use of our trademarks or names (e.g., of Victoria's Secret, Victoria's Secret Pink, or Pink Nation) in metatags and/or hidden text. Specifically, the use of our trademarks or names in metatag keywords is trademark infringement, and the use of trademarks or names in page text, metatags, and/or hidden text for purposes of gaining higher rankings from search engines is unfair competition. Linking to any web page on this Web site is prohibited absent our express written permission. Associating or juxtaposing our Web site or its Materials (e.g., through framing or inline linking) with advertisements and/or other information not originating from our Web site is expressly prohibited.

Putting keywords in meta tags hasn't helped your site rank in Google for many years. Because so many sites abused it, they no longer use it in their algorithm. http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/keywords-meta-tag-in-web-searc...

Would the law actually consider the use of a trademark inside a meta tag, where people couldn't see it, to be an infringement? Has this legal theory ever been tested in a court?

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=meta+tag+trademark

It looks like it depends on the context. If your web page is actually making a statement about Victoria's Secret (e.g., "our products are as good as theirs, but cheaper"), then it looks like putting their trademark into your meta tag would be allowed as fair use. But just adding their trademark to your meta tag to get a hit when someone searches for them could be considered infringement, since you're using the trademark to confuse the consumer into believing that your site is somehow associated with their trademark.

So this submission is, itself, against the terms and conditions.

In case you're wondering, the specific sentence is in the section called "Special Notice" and the sentences starts with the word "Linking"

It probably has something to do with the sentence preceding it about SEO.

"Specifically, the use of our trademarks or names in metatag keywords is trademark infringement, and the use of trademarks or names in page text, metatags, and/or hidden text for purposes of gaining higher rankings from search engines is unfair competition."

This clause itself may be void depending on where you are. You might be liable by law, but what's the point having the clause in the TOS where you can never prove that the infringer ever saw the TOS, let alone accepted it.

I'm pretty sure I've seen terms like this that predate Google and the entire concept of links conferring an SEO benefit.

They're not the only ones. https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22Linking%20to%20any%20we...

Did OP just break the Victoria's Secret Web Site Terms, Conditions and Notices? Were it enforceable, what sort of penalty could OP face?

Did the OP ever agree to the terms and conditions for this web site? There is no legal contract unless it's voluntarily agreed to by both parties, and when you go to victoriassecret.com, there's nothing that says "click here to confirm that you agree to the terms of this web site".

So here's an interesting legal question- do you 'own' the full URL to a website by registering the domain?

I have never been to the Victoria's Secret website, so I have not read their TOS. Yet, if I see a link on a page (say, these comments) and I re-link to it (http://www.victoriassecret.com/shoes), am I in violation of their TOS?

Do they have any legal ground to stand on to stop me from posting this link? If millions of others post similar links, and they don't defend against those, does it show that they have less of a case?

This all seems absurd to me. My guess is that its posturing on VS's part, and while they might send out some nastygrams from their legal team, they probably wouldn't get far in court if they tried to press the issue more.

It seems to be you would just be "renting" the URL. You "rent" a domain on a yearly basis from the registrar which "owns" it.

Does this mean that Google is violating their terms by listing them in search results? I think someone from Google should maybe try to comply with this, I bet VS will be thrilled ;)

I wonder if they seriously have a use case where it is BAD to link to this site, or if it's just some crazy-ass boilerplate cut and paste from a document written in 1997.

It's probably a copy-paste but here's a use case:

A bunch of bad/flagged sites that link to victoria secret in attempt to get it flagged too and get sandboxed by google.

No, that's ridiculous. You can't stop people from linking to your site. However, on the off chance the paperwork will be hand-delivered by a VS model:

http://www.victoriassecret.com/shoes

Apparently Victoria would like her web site to remain a Secret.

I ♥ Karlie Kloss!

http://pink.victoriassecret.com/m/pink_hearts/image.jsp?imag...

This is just an educated guess, but I am fairly certain that this wouldn't hold up in a US court if they were to sue over it. Banning something as broad as a link to a website would probably run into serious first amendment issues. Further, they probably would never sue over it, because once they test in in court and lose, then the clause is demonstrably invalid. If it's never tested, they can still use it in C&D notices to try to intimidate people.

I doubt they strictly enforce this. It's most likely there so they have the power to have links removed if they think it is hurting their rep.

Oddly enough, if everyone complies with their wishes, there will be no way to discover or get to their website. Suits me fine.

In a world where this clause mattered, people can still link if they have consent and VS can still advertise it themselves.

Not exactly a new phenomenon. Who remembers Microsoft Sidewalk?

Ticketmaster and Microsoft Settle Suit on Internet Linking (1999). http://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/15/business/ticketmaster-and-...

I just want to know what they mean in the next section by:

"We may, but are not obligated to, use-in any way we see fir-any ideas, concepts, know-how, text, photographs, images or techniques..."

Is "seeing fir" a Christmas thing? And what exactly is their position on tinsel? I think more lawyers are needed.

I think too many businesses are misunderstanding differences between laws and their self-written self-fullfilling TOS-es and policies. In other words not following someone's TOS is not illegal and cannot be prohibited by the business itself, unless it somehow conflicts with country laws.

So.. Does Google obey these TOS? And - are they obliged to?

Looks like they are implicitly permitting google via robots.txt:

http://www.victoriassecret.com/robots.txt

    User-agent: ia_archiver    
    Disallow: /    

    User-agent: *    
    Disallow: /commerce/application?namespace=shoppingBag&origin=myMain.jsp&event=link.viewBag    
    Disallow: /commerce/logoff.vs    
    Disallow: /commerce/signin.vs    
    Disallow: /commerce/registration.vs    
    Disallow: /commerce/logon.vs    
    Disallow: /commerce/addressbook/index.jsp    
    Disallow: /commerce/changePasswordJsf.vs    

    Sitemap: http://www.victoriassecret.com/sitemap.xml

Deleted comment

Robots.txt is only an indication of which pages should/shouldn't be visited.

Instructions about which pages can be included in a search engine's index (and hence linked to from results pages) would go in a meta tag on the relevant page.

Very large sites would love to see a 'noindex' parameter in robots.txt; sadly it's not there.

> Very large sites would love to see a 'noindex' parameter in robots.txt; sadly it's not there.

Isn't

    User-agent: *
    Disallow: /

enough?

I don't see how Google could possibly be expected to parse legalese English sentences.

You have violated the TOS by linking to the TOS.

Well, that's not exactly going to help the SEO

Hah! So one might think.. but right now they're linked from HN, with more links in the discussion. I never was to that site before, and probably never would have if it wasn't for this story. Like here, it's going to be linked on a lot of blogs, forums etc. that would otherwise not have linked to it. They can change whatever they want about their TOS and robots.txt any time they wish; most of those links will stay for a long, long time.

This is either very stupid or very smart; or maybe so stupid it wraps around to smart.

Wait! Didn't you just violate their TOS?

Victoria told me a secret. I know Victoria's secret. Sue me.

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