Linking to 3rd Party sites

Legal Issues in Flexible Learning - Q and A

If we have a page on our website, containing relevant active links - some to homepages and some deep linking - is it necessary to obtain written permission from the owners of these websites?
!What the lawyers say...
By way of background, linking technology allows users to be automatically transported to another website or webpage. Deep-linking is a particular form of linking that permits users to bypass a site's home page and going directly to an internal webpage. Concerns about deep-linking have been raised by some website operators because it allows users' to skip past any advertising or important notices contained on the home page.
There is currently no Australian law regulating linking on the Internet and no strict legal requirement to obtain written permission form the owners of linked-to websites. However, obtaining such a written permission will help protect your organisation against any claim that links on your site infringe the rights of another website operator.
Educational institutions should be aware that:
it is not clear whether linking will breach the copyright in the linked website under Australian law - obtaining permission to link to a site will reduce the risk of possible copyright infringement;
the link should not confuse the viewer of the linked site about the origin of the material on that site - providing a clear