These Links Were Made for Breaking? II
Avi Adelman is a CoF member in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, so I've known him for quite some time. His Web site, Barking Dogs, is a snarky, community-minded service that frequently takes citizens, civic leaders, developers, and other parties in the Lower Greenville neighborhood to task.

Now the corporate parent of the Dallas Morning News is taking Avi to task. This week, the paper's owner sent Avi a legalistic letter demanding that he remove any and all deep links to the paper's Web site from Barking Dogs. Instead, the company requests that Avi only link to the paper's home page.

Talk about biting the hands that feed you. Most corporate and large-scale media sites are designed clumsily, and if it's a challenge to find something I'm looking for, I'm not going to look. I understand the paper's concern with losing the frame of reference -- and ad views -- of its site when folks link directly to articles, but, hey, why not design those article pages so they're free of frames, include the context you feel you need, and carry ads? Seems simple enough.

If I can't link directly to the item I'm interested in sharing with people, I'm not going to link at all. I encourage you to do the same. In fact, notice that I didn't link to the Morning News in this entry. They don't deserve your attention.