URL shorteners are common on Twitter. For instance, I used ow.ly (from Hootsuite) to shorten http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article5973731.ece to http://ow.ly/1qtl.
However, rather than redirecting to the target URL, like most URL shorteners, ow.ly is framing the destination URL, in direct contravention of many sites’ T&Cs.
Example of ow.ly ignoring no-framing terms and conditions
Owly framing other websites – against their T&Cs
The Times, for instance, says “unauthorised framing of or linking to the Website is prohibited”. This screenshot shows how ow.ly is ignoring this.
The title is the Times’s site’s, the content is from the Times … but the URL is still the ow.ly one, there’s an ow.ly box along the top of the page, and there’s no Times favicon.
T&Cs forbidding framing are common (as are newspapers and other sites forbidding deep-linking) – and ow.ly is ignoring them.
You might also like
- Newspaper sites: don’t read or link to us …
- NewsNow vs the Times: Right to crawl vs right to link
- Sun blocks NewsNow from crawling its site
- Michael Jackson’s kids made the Daily Mail the most visited UK newspaper site in June
- Love Chips: what the site says about government spin and SEO
Leave a comment!
