Remember "Cool URIs Don't Change"? I think about it a lot. It was written toward the end of the BOHF's reign, when a technical specialist of the web had quite

Remember "Cool URIs Don't Change"? I think about it a lot. It was written toward the end of the BOHF's reign, when a technical specialist of the web had quite a lot of sway, when their decisions about a site's information architecture and how it was run was, if not the law, at least a very heavy hand on the till. Those days are long past. Now Ted in Marketing wants a URL and who are you not to give it to him? I remember the pain of creating vanity top-level URLs in SharePoint 2003 because some functionary wanted them, and then they would promptly forget what they demanded. Yes, I used to use 410 Gones where appropriate. That sort of thing has not been in our hands for quite a white, even if it is probably the best thing to do. After all, has the product URL changed? Or will it be back? Or has it been discontinued? The correct HTTP response, properly and widely used, would be very helpful in moving so much of the web forward but that is not under our control. Hasn't been for a while.