Pay $100.000 if you link to Saygent's website

#1

Post by mattront » Sat, Jun 16, 2012, 11:18 AM UTC

Just stumbled across some TOS craziness on Saygent's website. Can't link to it directly because according to their TOS I would be liable to pay them $100.000 in damages.

Here is a workaround: - google Saygent (hope that Google got their permission) - visit their site and click on Legal at the bottom to open the TOS - check out the "HYPERLINKING TO SITE, CO-BRANDING, "FRAMING" AND REFERENCING SITE PROHIBITED" paragraph

C'mon guys, you're a SV startup, not Associated Press!!!

Re: Pay $100.000 if you link to Saygent's website

#2

Post by jameswyse » Sat, Jun 16, 2012, 12:36 PM UTC

http://saygent.com/ - sue me.

Re: Pay $100.000 if you link to Saygent's website

#3

Post by sirwitti » Sat, Jun 16, 2012, 12:40 PM UTC

jameswyse wrote: post #2

http://saygent.com/ - sue me.

funny. I just made a submission doing exactly what you did :) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4120492

Re: Pay $100.000 if you link to Saygent's website

#4

Post by olog-hai » Sat, Jun 16, 2012, 12:44 PM UTC

It's not just Saygent.

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22no+one+may+hyperlink+this+...

And it's not a recent phenomenon.

http://boingboing.net/2007/02/01/fruitbat-grounded-be.html

Re: Pay $100.000 if you link to Saygent's website

#5

Post by tseabrooks » Sat, Jun 16, 2012, 12:49 PM UTC

I read the title as $100.00 because it had a decimal and I'm American.

Looking at the TOS it appears to be $100,000.00 which is quite a bit bigger than I thought from the headline.

Re: Pay $100.000 if you link to Saygent's website

#6

Post by dsthode » Sat, Jun 16, 2012, 12:54 PM UTC

I guess they haven't thought of dying of oblivion if no one is allowed (freely) to link to their site.

Re: Pay $100.000 if you link to Saygent's website

#7

Post by curiouscats » Sat, Jun 16, 2012, 12:58 PM UTC

Someone should make a javascript plugin to remove any results for sites with such terms from the search results Google and DuckDuckGo provide. That way we can be safe from finding these sites and mistakingly linking to one of them :-)

Re: Pay $100.000 if you link to Saygent's website

#8

Post by jerf » Sat, Jun 16, 2012, 1:03 PM UTC

Even more fun: https://www.google.com/?q=link:www.saygent.com#hl=en&out...

(It seems to have gotten harder to link to Google results pages. I tried to cut it down but kept getting a link to the main search page with my query filled in.)

Re: Pay $100.000 if you link to Saygent's website

#9

Post by daspion » Sat, Jun 16, 2012, 1:25 PM UTC

Maybe I haven't had my coffee yet, but why wouldn't they want people to link to their site? That's the point of the Web.

Re: Pay $100.000 if you link to Saygent's website

#10

Post by mjschultz » Sat, Jun 16, 2012, 1:30 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #8

Even more fun: https://www.google.com/?q=link:www.saygent.com#hl=en&out... (It seems to have gotten harder to link to Google results pages. I tried to cut it down but kept getting a link to the main search page with my query filled in.)

I ran into that problem a few weeks ago. After a fair amount of tinkering, I found that this:

    https://www.google.com/search?q=link:www.saygent.com

Works the way you want it to. You just need to add search before the `?` and you should be good.