"There is no reason to have to ask before making a link to another site."
Tim Berners-Lee, founder of the World-Wide Web
"We cannot regard anyone as having the 'right not to be referred to'
without completely pulling the rug out from under free speech."
Tim Berners-Lee, founder of the World-Wide Web
"[Deep linking] ... It's an inherent part of the Web, in the same way that nouns and verbs are essential parts of speech. If you don't want people linking to or accessing certain content on your Web site, you can implement whatever rules you want to in the design or configuration of your site. But if you put content in a public place with its own published address, it's pointless to pretend that the address is a secret, and you shouldn't expect the legal system to enforce that ridiculous notion."
David Sorkin
Federal Judge Harry Hupp, in Ticketmaster vs. Tickets.com, clearly ruled that we Americans have the right to link (hyperlink) on the World Wide Web -- as much as we want, any time we want, as deeply as we want, to any material we want. The only caveat he gave was that when we include material in an HTML frame, to not do it in a such way as to represent material from another site as our own.
Here are some links to articles and opinions on our right to link:
Important articles about other web-related civil freedoms:
Important articles (or groups of articles) about still other electronic civil freedoms:
Organizations helping to defend electronic civil rights: