[bbguitar]

The NLA in the UK is doing exactly the same thing.

I can't believe the stupidity of this. Basically Newspapers are giving these 'companies' the right to extort money from anyone who links to their news website.

The high court has assured that individuals do not count and scraping from free services like Google Alerts is ok.

However if you do it in work for a company bigger than 7 people you can be a legitimate target for litigation.

Well the loss of links is going to slap them down the rankings for news stories and their websites overall as anyone with links to their site will have to remove them. Shooting in foot with a shotgun comes to mind.

There is also a case under litigation in the UK and is still unresolved..

If you work for a newspaper make sure your editor understands that the end effect if this jokery continues is that your newspaper website (that you're spending a lot of money on) will plummet in the search engines as people rush in droves to remove links.

Link to the UK NLA debacle. http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/7826-nla-v-meltwater-are-mil...