IDG’s Blunt Instrument

Now granted, I might have my own rather biased reasons to beat a tired old horse, but really, Loosely Coupled nails it in this post about IDG’s deep linking policies. They are blunt, dumb, and tone deaf. I understand that there may be cases where others are making hay off your content and you have to respond (I deal with this from time to time at Boing Boing), but this policy is not the answer.

In short, IDG’s policy states: You may not link to our site if you sell ads on your site or you charge a subscription fee to use or access your site. So I just broke the policy by linking to them, I guess, now that I take AdSense. Loosley Coupled notes they’ve broken the policy about 1,000 times. In this world of personal media, its nothing short of ridiculous to ask folks to NOT link to your content. It’s suicide.

(Thanks, Dan)