The Deeper You Link - The WSJ notes the controversy surrounding so-called "deep linking," a practice by which websites (say, for example, a blog) posts links to pages deep inside another website, thereby by-passing the other site's front page and other intermediate steps. The article follows the saga of a Dallas neighborhood site that earned itself a nasty letter from the lawyers for the local paper's publisher. You may recall the last time this subject made legal news, the case of Ticketmaster v. Tickets.com (and a similar lawsuit against Sidewalk, the late, lamented Microsoft venture) failed to reach any firm precedent because the cases settled before appeal. Happily for us bloggers, the WSJ reports that the top free news sites are happy to have deep linkers remora onto their websites:

"We have no problem with other news sites and Web logs linking to NYTimes.com -- the more, the better," says a spokeswoman for the New York Times Co...."In general, we think linking is helpful," agrees Cliff Sloan, general counsel for WashingtonPost Newsweek Interactive, which publishes WashingtonPost.com.

In fact, it seems that the Journal has even posted their article at a permanent free link in this one case. For a list of sites that don't permit deep linking (at least legally - it can be quite difficult to prevent it technologically), see DontLink.com. And for you bloggers out there, keep your lawyer handy.