Legal Question in Technology Law in Texas
Using other site's links on my web site
I want to start a commercial web site that is a job agent for a niche market. I would research the internet and eventually have it done through programming, to find links to current sites that have job listings that are appropriate to the niche (let's say Muffin Baker.
I would compile all of the links from sites for muffin bakers and send them to subscribers in some format, email, access to member page, etc. This would be a paid service.
I would simply be the middle man between an applicant and a job board. It would keep the applicant from having to do their own searches through the morass of web sites.
Since I am not listing the job listing as if it were mine, do I need permission from the originator of the listing to put it on my site? Again it would simply be a link back to the original listing site i.e. Monster.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Using other site's links on my web site
In analyzing legality of various uses of the internet, it is often useful to ask if the activity would be legal if done without the internet.
The job clipping service you propose is roughly analagous to searching the classified ads in many newspapers and providing a listing of them to a customer who pays for that service. The point there is that it is often worth it for the applicant because it increases the number of leads the applicant can pursue.
Here, the important thing is to be sure you do not pass the links off as being to your business when they are really links to another site. If you are honest about that you should not run into any problem of copyright or trademark infringement from the service you propose. If you start framing in a way that makes the linked site look like it is yours, then you start to deceive and are taking a legal risk.
Just remember to be honest and fairly credit those sites to which you link.
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