Blog: 
Dec
Nov
Oct
The Information Police
Sep
Aug
By way of a Public
Citizen blog and the ubiquitous freedom advocates over at
Boing Boing, the net has discovered
a Virginia law firm whose user agreement disallows practically everything. No viewing the HTML source, no copying
of any of the site content, no linking to the site, no borrowing of the general layout and no use of the
firm name for any unauthorized reason, period. You can look, but that's it. Remembering what you saw may even
be prohibited.
I know the name of a great law firm, but I am not allowed to tell it to you!
Who Are These Guys?
A privacy policy this restrictive brings up some interesting points. According to the terms of the user agreement, which I
have read, I am not allowed to use the name of the firm, nor any derivative of it. So, I can't tell you their name, or
that it rhymes with...ah, never mind. I would be happy to quote directly from their website, except that's not
allowed either. There is a certain zen quality to discussing this company. I only discovered it because somebody
else broke their rules. The folks who run those
two
blogs brazenly link to the law firm'
s website, duplicate swaths of the privacy policy, and probably jaywalk with reckless abandon. I suspect they
will be the target of lawsuits shortly, though I wonder if the name of the plaintiff will be made public?
The law firm in question specializes, naturally, in Internet law. They ferociously represent clients protecting,
grasping, or redefining intellectual property, a legal concept with about as much foundation as a holiday fruitcake.
It makes sense these attorneys have plastered their own site with self-aggrandizing warnings. Submit or we'll sue.
The Fallacy of Intellectual Property
Information defies ownership. Ask any gossip queen. Once you've blurted it out, you can expect it to appear on the
society page the next day; or, in this modern age, instantly findable via Google. Unlike physical property, information can
be stored, duplicated, exchanged, and transported virtually instantly and basically for free. This makes it tough to
protect with laws and police officers. Copyright is practically unenforceable. Acceptable usage policies regarding
chunks of information are humorously futile. The laywers at the firm they won't allow me to mention are case in point.
I Am Not a Lawyer
I may not be licensed to practice law, but I'll pretend to be an attorney for the course of this paragraph. I don't
think it's reasonable to claim that the act of viewing a website automatically binds the user to the terms and
conditions of that website. This would like the last page of a novel that stated: "By reading this book, you agree
to send the author the entirety of your life savings." Contracts must be knowingly and actively enacted
by the parties in question. Yes, I saw that website for those lawyers, but seeing it doesn't mean I agreed with it!
Now that my paragraph-long legal career is over, I'll return to my usual position of cowering from those who have the
time and money to make my life difficult. I will still not mention the name of that law firm, just in case their
policy is enforceable. I won't quote from their website. I won't link to it either, lest I incur their wrath.
I've said everything I can say within the terms of their user agreement, but I still might not safe. They indicate
that they update it regularly, which means I may well have broken a condition yet to be unveiled. I wonder how
that would play out in court.
Further Reading:
Would you like to leave a comment?
Read this.
###
