Case sets huge precedent for how websites link

Wendy Davis has a piece up at Slate about a lawsuit which could have a profound effect on how most websites operate. The case refers to a dispute between BlockShopper, a real estate news site and a law firm, Jones Day. BlockShopper ran a few stories about two Jones Day lawyers who made house purchases and linked back to Jones Day for the bios on the respective lawyers. Jones Day, in turn, sued BlockShopper for trademark infringement, flimsily arguing that by linking to their website BlockShopper may be confusing readers into thinking there is a correlation between the two sites.

This is pretty much a bullshit, frivolous lawsuit and a number of law groups spoke out about it. But as Davis outlines in the article, the judge in the case ruled in favor of the law firm, BlockShopper decided to settle and the result is rather obnoxious to anyone who writes on the web:

The idea that readers of a real estate news site would somehow be confused by links to Jones Day, on the other hand, shouldn't have passed the straight-face test. One legal blogger proposed that the attorneys who brought the suit take ethics classes. Paul Alan Levy of Public Citizen described the lawsuit as a "new entry in the contest for 'grossest abuse of trademark law to suppress speech the plaintiff doesn't like.' " The digital rights groups Public Citizen, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Citizen Media Law Project, and Public Knowledge tried to file a friend-of-the-court brief asking for the case to be dismissed.

No go. In November, federal district court Judge John Darrah rejected the amicus brief and denied BlockShopper's motion to dismiss the case before trial. Two months earlier, he had issued an injunction requiring BlockShopper to remove the Jones Day articles while the case was pending.

Faced with the prospect of big legal bills and an unfriendly judge, BlockShopper co-founder Brian Timpone decided to settle. On Tuesday, the real estate site said it agreed to change how it links to Jones Day. BlockShopper will no longer use the names of Jones Days attorneys as anchor text. Instead, it will use the full and cumbersome URL. In other words, Timpone said, instead of posting "Tiedt is an associate," the site will write "Tiedt (http://www.jonesday.com/jtiedt/) is an associate." (The agreement also calls on BlockShopper to say that the lawyer in question is employed at Jones Day and that more information about the attorney is on the firm's Web site.)

Obviously, this does little to stop BlockShopper from writing unflattering articles about Jones Day employees, but the law firm has won a big victory which would make it very expensive to run a website. If a website has to alter their "linking protocol" it would not only change the style of the writing, making it look more clumsy and haphazard, but it would also be, as Davis points out, more labor intensive. That basically means more costs to the websites.

In Wisconsin there's a similar suit brought forth by Jennifer Reisinger, a political critic, who is suing city officials - including the mayor - in Sheboygan for violating her first amendment rights by forcing her to take down links to a police department. Hopefully the result of this case will be different.

*Edit* Just to let you know, I fucked up the links in this article at first. MAYBE THE INTERNETS ARE TRYING TO TELL ME SOMETHING