According to an AP report (cited in Slashdot), Intentia International has filed criminal charges against Reuters PLC, alleging that the news service illegally obtained an earnings report that the company had not yet released, by guessing the URL at which it had been posted on Intentia's public web site. Intentia claims that the report was "not available through normal channels," according to AP. (Also see Financial Times and CNET News.com reports.)  DES permalink

WPS Health Insurance requires linking sites to sign a linking agreement in order to link to WPS's home page, and prohibits links to other pages on its site. The agreement features three whereas clauses; among the words it uses are hereby and herein (twice each); hereof, hereto, and hereunder (four times each); said (as an adjective, naturally); thereunder; and whereof. It is posted in both HTML and PDF, although both versions have the year "2001" hard-coded in the date field.  DES permalink

Symantec Corporation permits links to its site, but imposes numerous requirements on linking sites and requires them to agree that the link will be removed upon request. Many other sites have suspiciously similar policies, including Center for Lymphatic Health, Christian Resource Centre (Bermuda), eWord Development, Hodapp Images & Design, International Internet Telephone Organization, Northern Lipids Inc., Paradise Multimedia Productions, Rochdale Online, and Toyzine.Com.  DES permalink

SonicBoomerang prohibits users from linking to its site without first entering into a written linking agreement.
Update (Mar. 30): SonicBoomerang has removed the linking restriction from its posted terms of use.  DES permalink

American Stock Exchange and New York Stock Exchange prohibit unauthorized hypertext links to their web sites. NASDAQ merely insists that other sites link only to its home page, but reserves the right to revoke its consent even to those links. And here's the most egregious linking policy I've ever seen: Chicago Mercant1le Exchange demands a written license agreement from everyone who uses a link to CME's web site -- as far as I can tell, that includes anyone who merely clicks on a link to the site. (If you don't believe me, read the CME Web Site Terms and Conditions. Those terms describe hyperlinks to CME's web site as "brand features" that may be used only as explicitly licensed by CME -- "All specific uses of any CME Brand Features must be approved in advance by CME." The license may be requested by telephone or mail, and CME says it typically responds within 10 business days.)  DES permalink