Court orders site to stop deep linking to pages of its rival

The injunction was granted by a German court against Danish media group OfiR, restraining it from using hypertext links to StepStone's German job site. It is one of the first cases in which the new EU Copyright and Databases Regulations have been successfully used to control hypertext links over the internet.

StepStone sought the injunction because OFiR was using the link to substantiate a claim about the large quantity of jobs available via its site. StepStone deemed this action to be prejudicial to its brand position in the long term. In addition OFiR were deep linking to the StepStone site which meant visitors were not taken to the home page and therefore did not see its banner advertising.

Adrian Lifely of Osborne Clarke, the law firm representing StepStone, said:

"It is not, of course, every case of hypertext linking which is unlawful - the internet would grind to a halt. But the courts in Europe do have power to intervene where linking is extensive and prejudicial to the site involved. The impact of the Database Regulations in this respect is often overlooked and I'm sure we will see many more cases like this in future as the legal framework of the internet matures."

In August 2000, an Amsterdam court ruled in support of deep linking in a case where one news site was linking to stories on other web sites of various newspapers. The objection of the Dutch newspaper group in bringing the action was that the links would bypass the branding and advertising on the home page of its web site.

The court decided that deep linking to other sites is a widespread and commonly accepted practice on the internet and that, under copyright law, there is an exception to copying for the reporting of current events, provided there is sufficient acknowledgement.

The Dutch case was the first deep linking case in Europe to accept the practice. However, the StepStone case is different because the copyright loophole that excuses news reporting was not relevant.