Cingular and Verizon Are Full of It

You would think that questions about linking to a website, or more specifically, what you're allowed to say when linking, would have been put to rest. But that's not true for Cingular or for Verizon Wireless, who think they have a right to control your hyperlink anchor text and where you link on their public sites.

Chalk this one up to lawyers trying to justify their billable hours as major corporations try to control everything you say, see, and do. It may be time for a virtual Bill of Rights beginning with the same freedom of speech (freedom of linking) protections the original gave us.

The Founding Fathers couldn't have fathomed such technology, but you can bet they'd be appalled at the limits on freedom in which the government-corporate cabal is regularly engaged.   

This text appears on Cingular's website:

 Links to the Sites. You are granted a limited, nonexclusive right to create a hypertext link to the homepage of the Sites, provided such link does not portray Cingular Wireless or any of its products and services in a false, misleading, derogatory, or otherwise defamatory manner… This limited right may be revoked at any time.

So in effect, Cingular asserts that you can't say anything bad about them and link to their site. If you wanted to say Cingular charges too much for their services (which is an opinion and protected speech) and wanted to link to them, that would be in violation of how you are allowed to talk about them.

The arbitrary nature of the word "derogatory" leaves quite a bit of room for interpretation. For example, if I said Cingular's parent company
Can I say Verizon damages its own reputation by
Now we're just getting persnickety.

Limits on to whom you can link and what you can say about the entity to whom you are linking are violations of fundamental rights. It's too bad that this day in age, that free speech still has to be spelled out.

Some additional sources on linking: