Big Stink Over a Simple Link
by Farhad Manjoo

Thursday, December 06, 2001 5:00 a.m. EST
KPMG, an international business consulting firm, prides itself on its "e-business" savvy,
and it charges companies boatloads to improve their Web-based businesses.

But this week several website owners were wondering whether KPMG's Internet acumen
was really worth anything at all, as it announced a policy that seemed to breach the
most basic freedom on the Web -- the freedom to link to any site you want to.

In a letter to a consultant in Britain who runs a personal website that has not been
especially nice to KPMG, the company said it had discovered a link on his site to
www.kpmg.com, and that the website owner, Chris Raettig, should "please be aware such
links require that a formal Agreement exist between our two parties, as mandated by our
organization's Web Link Policy."

The letter added that Raettig should feel free to arrange this "Web Link Agreement" with
KPMG, but that until he has done so, he should remove his link to the company's
homepage.

Raettig is one of those digital-age 22-year-olds who know the Web inside out, and he's
aware when he's being flimflammed. So he penned a nice no-thanks letter back to the
company, saying that "my own organization's Web link policy requires no such formal
agreement."

Raettig also stated the obvious big problem with KPMG's policy: "If every hyperlink
used on the Web required parties at both sides of the link to enter into a formal
agreement, I sincerely doubt that the Web would be in existence today."

Raettig posted his correspondence with KPMG on his online journal, and when others
who run their own weblogs saw the item, they decided to have a little fun with KPMG.
They linked to KPMG's site -- just like this -- to see what the company could do about
it.

Within a day of Raettig's posting, several dozen sites were linking to KPMG's front page,
according to Blogdex, a weblog indexing system. So many people visited Raettig's site
that it was knocked offline for awhile, which he found "very amusing."

Tom Coates, who runs a weblog called Plastic Bag, said that KPMG was getting its just
desserts. "On the Web, it's so easy for people to make a farce out of companies like
this, and these communities are very strong and are prepared to say you're just dicking
us around," he said. "It's not an environment where big companies can easily throw their
weight around."

But George Ledwith, a KPMG spokesman, insisted the company wasn't trying to harass
anyone, and was just "protecting its brand."

Asked if he was aware of the weblog backlash, he answered: "What we are aware of is
that individuals and others link to our site without an agreement, and we have a Web
policy clearly outlined."

The policy he refers to -- posted on the company's website -- states, "KPMG is
obligated to protect its reputation and trademarks and KPMG reserves the right to
request removal of any link to our website."

He said that this was not a new policy, nor was it unusual. "We easily sent hundreds of
these letters over the past year," he said. Indeed, he wondered why this was considered
newsworthy at all, as "many organizations do this."

And Ledwith is right -- others have tried to enforce linking rules. Last year,
Ticketmaster alleged that a rival company, Ticket.com, was violating its copyright by
linking to "deep" pages on its site -- that is, allowing people to bypass Ticketmaster's
front page, where its most lucrative ads were located.

But Ticketmaster lost that bid. "Hyperlinking does not itself involve a violation of the
Copyright Act," ruled U.S. District Judge Harry Hupp. "There is no deception in what is
happening. This is analogous to using a library's card index to get reference to particular
items, albeit faster and more efficiently."

KPMG is not saying that only "deep links" require approval, but that all links require its
approval. Still, Ledwith was steadfast in his defense of the policy, saying that "our brand
is an asset that deserves protection."

What exactly did Raettig do to KPMG to provoke its brand-protection instincts?

Ledwith insists it was merely his link to KPMG's site, but Raettig and others think the
company got upset that Raettig has posted KPMG's theme song on his website.

KPMG's theme song? Yes, its theme song -- a several-minute long repetitive ditty
called "Vision of Global Strategy."

It goes -- sing along, now -- "KPMG/We're strong as can be/A dream of power and
energy/We go for the goal/Together we hold/On to our vision of global strategy..."

It's easy to see why KPMG would have been upset at Raettig for posting it. "They're
saying how dare they mock the great establishment of KPMG, the holy church of
corporate finance?" Coates said.

"So they decided to throw their weight around, and it didn't work," he added.