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I remember back in the day when web browsers actually cost money, my ISP would sell you Netscape preconfigured to use their website as the browser's homepage. B

I remember back in the day when web browsers actually cost money, my ISP would sell you Netscape preconfigured to use their website as the browser's homepage. Being a Canadian ISP, they provided helpful links to the CBC website on their default homepage. From a legal standpoint, how is that any different at all? Would you say that my ISP was also exploiting CBC's content at the time?

jarek 15y ago
No, they were charging you for the browser. If they sold you a browser that could only view CBC content, CBC might have had beef. (Though remember that back then a lot of legal standards that have now been created didn't exist.) If they sold you a browser with homepage set to CBC by default and extensively marketed that product based on the CBC homepage, CBC might have had beef. If they iframed CBC on their own homepage, CBC might have had beef. Despite some providers' (including CBC's) fanciful claims to the contrary, I don't think or recall any court decision giving control over incoming links to parties being linked to. (Compare to decisions, however controversial, regarding outgoing links, .torrent links being the classic case.)
- randomdata 15y ago
  The original version was marketed under the CBC brand. While that looked like a pretty clear cut violation, the author has gone to lengths to remove those references. Now the product is just a web browser whose home page provides hyperlinks to the CBC website, just like my ISP did back in the day. When you buy the app, you are buying the web browser, not the CBC content. The CBC content is only accessible via hyperlinks which you, the user, have to specifically activate. I get where you are coming from, but it is not clear where the line is drawn. If I create a web browser with a built-in search field that forwards the browser to Google, like many browsers do these days, am I liable to Google in the same way? What if I create an HTML form with a search field that points towards Google? What if I move the HTML form URL into an <a> tag?

jarek 15y ago

No, they were charging you for the browser. If they sold you a browser that could only view CBC content, CBC might have had beef. (Though remember that back then a lot of legal standards that have now been created didn't exist.) If they sold you a browser with homepage set to CBC by default and extensively marketed that product based on the CBC homepage, CBC might have had beef. If they iframed CBC on their own homepage, CBC might have had beef. Despite some providers' (including CBC's) fanciful claims to the contrary, I don't think or recall any court decision giving control over incoming links to parties being linked to. (Compare to decisions, however controversial, regarding outgoing links, .torrent links being the classic case.)

randomdata 15y ago
The original version was marketed under the CBC brand. While that looked like a pretty clear cut violation, the author has gone to lengths to remove those references. Now the product is just a web browser whose home page provides hyperlinks to the CBC website, just like my ISP did back in the day. When you buy the app, you are buying the web browser, not the CBC content. The CBC content is only accessible via hyperlinks which you, the user, have to specifically activate. I get where you are coming from, but it is not clear where the line is drawn. If I create a web browser with a built-in search field that forwards the browser to Google, like many browsers do these days, am I liable to Google in the same way? What if I create an HTML form with a search field that points towards Google? What if I move the HTML form URL into an <a> tag?