Somebody really needs to explain to old people that anybody can link to any public site if they feel like it, no matter how many lawyers they pay to write silly disclaimers on a portion of their site nobody reads.
Yes, hot on the heels of Lowe’s is this hilarious disclaimer on the Olympics’ website:
You may create your own link to the Site, provided that your link is in a text-only format. You may not use any link to the Site as a method of creating an unauthorized association between an organization, business, goods, or services and London 2012, and agree that no such link shall portray us or any other official London 2012 organizations (or our or their activities, products, or services) in a false, misleading, derogatory, or otherwise objectionable manner.
Mmmkay, and you’re going to enforce that how, exactly?
We fully get the idea behind this policy: they’re attempting to scare off people trying to tie their various crappy products to the Olympics. Around this time of year everybody from male enhancement hucksters to knock-off clothing people try to sell Olympics crap, and clearly the Olympic committee would like to tightly control that orgy of consumerism. But to try to prevent any links from sites that portray the Olympics in a derogatory manner? HAHAHA…UM, OKAY.
Also, surely people pirating merchandise will be totally frightened by the idea they might get sued over a link, right? Yeah, sure.
image courtesy Vernieman on Flickr