
Pay $100.000 if you link to Saygent's website - mattront
Just stumbled across some TOS craziness on Saygent's website. Can't link to it directly because according to their TOS I would be liable to pay them $100.000 in damages.<p>Here is a workaround:
- google Saygent (hope that Google got their permission)
- visit their site and click on Legal at the bottom to open the TOS
- check out the "HYPERLINKING TO SITE, CO-BRANDING, "FRAMING" AND REFERENCING SITE PROHIBITED" paragraph<p>C'mon guys, you're a SV startup, not Associated Press!!!
======
chris_wot
Check out the following condition:

"In no case shall the viewer, visitor, member, subscriber or customer have the
right to go to court or have a jury trial."

Just because you say I can't, doesn't make it so.

I do like that the fact that they haven't stated that if one part of the
contract is made invalid then the rest of the contract that is enforcable will
remain valid.

Whoever wrote up this legalese has missed something important, but included
something ridiculous. Whoops!

 _P.S._ Oh, and I also like they have included most of an episode of Seinfeld
above their legal policy. Copyright violation, anyone? The irony...

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DaneOfSaygent
I'm Dane from Saygent. Thanks for catching this! We now have a fine calculator
to help web goers better understand our fee/fine structure.

<http://saygent.com/fine_calculator>

~~~
clavalle
The fiverr part was a joke, right?

~~~
DaneOfSaygent
No. Fiverr is a great service but it probably shouldn't be used for important
things like TOS. #IANAL

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curiouscats
Someone should make a javascript plugin to remove any results for sites with
such terms from the search results Google and DuckDuckGo provide. That way we
can be safe from finding these sites and mistakingly linking to one of them
:-)

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jameswyse
<http://saygent.com/> \- sue me.

~~~
sirwitti
funny. I just made a submission doing exactly what you did :)
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4120492>

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tseabrooks
I read the title as $100.00 because it had a decimal and I'm American.

Looking at the TOS it appears to be $100,000.00 which is quite a bit bigger
than I thought from the headline.

~~~
dholowiski
Yay, you're American. Most of the world isn't.

~~~
chad_oliver
You know, it's not just Americans who use dots for decimal points. New
Zealand, Australia, Canada, India, and a whole lot of other countries use that
format too.

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olog-hai
It's not just Saygent.

[http://www.google.com/search?q=%22no+one+may+hyperlink+this+...](http://www.google.com/search?q=%22no+one+may+hyperlink+this+site%22)

And it's not a recent phenomenon.

<http://boingboing.net/2007/02/01/fruitbat-grounded-be.html>

~~~
bvdbijl
It seems to be some cookie cutter legal template:
[https://www.google.nl/search?q=%22Unless%20expressly%20autho...](https://www.google.nl/search?q=%22Unless%20expressly%20authorized%20by%20website,%20no%20one%20may%20hyperlink%20this%20site,%20or%20portions%20thereof,%20\(including,%20but%20not%20limited%20to,%20logotypes,%20trademarks,%20branding%20or%20copyrighted%20material\)%20to%20theirs%20for%20any%20reason.%20Further,%20you%20are%20not%20allowed%20to%20reference%20the%20URL%20\(website%20address\)%20of%20this%20website%20in%20any%20commercial%20or%20non-
commercial%20media%20without%20express%20permission,%20nor%20are%20you%20allowed%20to%20frame%20the%20site.%20You%20specifically%20agree%20to%20cooperate%20with%20the%20Website%20to%20remove%20or%20de-
activate%20any%20such%20activities%20and%20be%20liable%20for%20all%20damages.%20You%20hereby%20agree%20to%20liquidated%20damages%20of%20US$100,000.00%20plus%20costs%20and%20actual%20damages%20for%20violating%20this%20provision.%22)

------
jerf
Even more fun:
[https://www.google.com/?q=link:www.saygent.com#hl=en&out...](https://www.google.com/?q=link:www.saygent.com#hl=en&output=search&sclient=psy-
ab&q=link:www.saygent.com&oq=link:www.saygent.com&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_l=hp.3...0.0.0.3519.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0...0.0.dF681jkLwCU&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=fb4c575ddcccef5a&biw=1220&bih=903)

(It seems to have gotten harder to link to Google results pages. I tried to
cut it down but kept getting a link to the main search page with my query
filled in.)

~~~
mjschultz
I ran into that problem a few weeks ago. After a fair amount of tinkering, I
found that this:

    
    
        https://www.google.com/search?q=link:www.saygent.com
    

Works the way you want it to. You just need to add search before the `?` and
you should be good.

------
JohnHaugeland
If you view my webpage, you are required to mail me 20 BLTs and a pony, and to
invoke the sun-god Ra successfully, bringing fertility to the Nile.

This is not subject to arbitration by the courts of human law.

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tzs
Even assuming that this kind of TOS is valid, the damages clause is not likely
to hold in court. For a clause like that to be valid, it must (1) be a
reasonable estimate of the likely actual damages for violating the contract,
and (2) actual damages must be difficult to determine so that agreeing to a
fixed amount in the contact will save significant effort at trial.

Neither of these applies here. It is hard to see how most links could cause
anywhere near $100k in damages. Worst case would be a link that results in a
DOS from heavy traffic, but the actual damages from that are not too hard to
figure out--overage charges from their hosting company, plus costs of overtime
for hourly employees who have to deal with the DOS, plus profits attributable
to the business they normally would have gotten during the downtime.

------
smoyer
Saygent has responded and there's a new discussion thread at
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4121750>.

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daspion
Maybe I haven't had my coffee yet, but why wouldn't they want people to link
to their site? That's the point of the Web.

~~~
SnaKeZ
inverse psychology? I don't know...

~~~
pjin
While it could be reverse psychology to troll HNers to linking their site,
it's also bad publicity among hackers, and the argument breaks Occam's razor.

~~~
daimyoyo
I believe Hanlon's razor more closely explains this site's actions.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlons_razor>

------
dbaupp
I don't understand why any one would do put any restriction on linking to
their site.

I can understand banning linking to certain sites _from_ their site, but the
other direction? It's a bit like paying for billboards and painting them and
then covering them up.

Can anyone explain why _any_ party would think it is a good idea to have
policies that will reduce the possibility of news sites/random blogs/whatever
linking to them and so reduce their page views?

(And thinking that they can get people to pay for the "privilege" of directing
possible customers their way?)

~~~
streptomycin
If you get a spammy link farm to link to a website, Google will drop their
rankings. So, some people do this to their competitors.

------
smoyer
Just use bit.ly and let them deal with it.

Not that I believe for a minute that this would ever hold up in court. And how
many people would go read the TOS before posting about the site if they found
it interesting. I was on their site for about 30 seconds and didn't find it at
all interesting (sorry).

Next addition to the TOS will prohibit standing next to their company's sign
and pointing to it with your index finger.

------
m_pagliazzi
it is legal to say

"BY VIEWING, VISITING, USING, OR INTERACTING WITH WWW.SAYGENT.COM OR WITH ANY
BANNER, POP-UP, OR ADVERTISING THAT APPEARS ON IT, YOU ARE AGREEING TO ALL THE
PROVISIONS OF THIS TERMS OF USE POLICY AND THE PRIVACY POLICY OF
WWW.SAYGENT.COM."

am i forced to search for the tos every time i use a website or they must get
my acceptance to the terms before viewing the site?

~~~
dangrossman
Website terms are routinely held to be enforceable even if you never clicked
the link to read them, IF:

1) There has been constructive notice that terms exist. If the only link to
them is buried in a footer you never have to scroll to, then you can argue
there was no such notice. That's why so many forms have the "by purchasing you
agree to our terms" type text in the form; if you're filling out the form you
can't argue you never saw the link.

2) The terms are reasonable.

For example: [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/01/browserwrapped-
te...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/01/browserwrapped-terms-of-use-
still-enforceable-says-court/)

------
walru
This is slightly off topic, but did anyone else have a completely different
idea of what they thought this company did based on their name? Never-the-
less, it's an interesting concept.

With in regardless to their TOS, I would imagine it's best to do as they wish,
and give them no further press by linking to their homepage.

------
x1
I'm not sure where to file this: Viral add campaign for Saygent or bored
lawyers writing a TOS.

In either case, Saygent just won... oh I'll show YOU Saygent, I hope you like
being on the front page of EVERYWHERE!

------
wittjeff
There is no "I agree" button, no way to indicate consent. A reasonable person
linking to the site might not even notice that these terms were in place, so
they can't be binding.

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MrUnknown
Looks like it was removed, because I can't find it.

They still have something in there about damages for $100k, but that pertains
to "using" the content of the site.

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10dpd
In a similar vein, I've heard of people claiming to charge per spam email
received, is there any precedent of someone successfully claiming there?

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thechut
This is clearly to give them a defense against their competitors link farming
them to SEO oblivion. But it seems so arrogant.

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mattront
Looks like they removed the controversial paragraph from their TOS. Great to
see the common sense prevail.

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dsthode
I guess they haven't thought of dying of oblivion if no one is allowed
(freely) to link to their site.

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mkr-hn
I haven't heard of this company before. Is this exceptionally out of character
for them?

------
rosstamicah
i am going to add "please go hyperlink this site" to my startup's terms

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whoami22
GOOGLE is linking to Saygent's website...

so Saygent is going to sue google???

~~~
dangrossman
That's not how contracts work; just because you CAN sue someone doesn't mean
you MUST. Nor does not enforcing against one party mean they can't against
another.

