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Original Paragraph:
There is a solution to this problem–a technological
solution. Current web browsers show only forward links–links from the page
being read to other pages. It would be possible to build a web browser, say Netscape Navigator 9.0,
that automatically showed back links, letting the user see not only what pages
the author of this page chose to link to but also what pages chose to link to
it.
Once such browsers are in common use, I need only put up a page with a link to
yours. Anyone browsing your page with the back link option turned on will be
led to my rebuttal.
Source: http://patrifriedman.com/prose-others/fi/commented/Future_Imperfect.html#There_is_a_solution_to_this_problema_technological
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[Tue Feb 17 19:34:13 PST 2004-47] Curtis (NOSPAMiaimeki@yahoo.com.NOSPAM):
There are a number of difficulties with this technological solution.
One of the obvious ones is the sheer number of links to major sites. A well-known site may well have hundreds of thousands or even millions of incoming links in all. A rebuttal link to a specific part of the site may be lost in the noise unless the viewer goes looking for it.
Another problem is the dynamic nature of many websites. If you link your rebuttal page to "http://www.slanderous.com/why_I_hate_your_guts.html," Mr. Slanderous may open up his web browser, note your link to his page, and then move the page to, "http://www.slanderous.com/why_I_hate_your_guts2.html" or even "http://www.libelous.com/why_I_hate_your_guts.html," then put up a link or true redirect so anyone who visits his site will be redirected to the new address where your rebuttal will no longer show up as a link. Browsers can work around this to a certain extent, of course, by showing sites which link to sites which link to a site. Mr. Slanderous may then choose to do it; the resulting exponential explosion is a problem for the browser, but not for Mr. Slanderous. He could probably also work around ways to deal with the exponential explosion; only following links within the same domain could be countered by a pair of domains trading links with one another, like "www.slanderous.com" and "www.libelous.com." Of course, if Mr. Slanderous' site is large enough, the number of incoming links within that one domain will be enough, as in the previous paragraph.
A third problem is the dynamic nature of the links list itself. Search engines like Google create their picture of the Web's structure by sending spiders, programs that can follow links on the web, out onto the web to search it. This is all well and good, but it means that your rebuttal may take much longer to be indexed than Mr. Slanderous' page. This is true even if you respond quickly: since Mr. Slanderous won't link your page, a spider that finds his won't necessarily find yours by following links.
The final problem I see immediately is that the links list must be maintained by a single group, rather than the large collection that maintains the Web as a whole. This allows, for example, Mr. Slanderous to pay Google to remove your link from appearing in the list of back links to his website. Google is noted for its honesty in such matters, but it has bowed to governmental and legal pressure: for instance, when Google removed entries in its search index to www.xenu.com, a site critical of Scientology.
[Mon May 24 13:40:44 PDT 2004-144] David Friedman (NOSPAMddfr@daviddfriedman.com.NOSPAM):
Thanks for the comments. I don't think your first problem is a very serious one for the particular context I'm talking about. A web site with thousands of links to it probably belongs to a person or organization with known identity and substantial assets--hence a potential target for a defamation suit. I'm concerned with defamation by much less prominent defamers.
Also, I expect it will be possible to link to a specified part of a page even without an anchor there, presumably by counting characters--I don't know if HTML currently permits this or not, never having tried it. If so, the back link browser can show a back link at the specific part of the page that defames me, which reduces your problem.
So far as moving the page, it should be easy enough to have a program that checks for that and notifies me, so I can update my link. It's true, as you point out, that there will be a time lag. On the other hand, search engines are a growing and profitable business, and I expect technological progress to reduce the length of that lag--despite the growth in the number of pages to be searched.
[Fri Feb 4 03:22:30 EST 2005-34] Monsyne Dragon (NOSPAMdragondm@integral.org.NOSPAM):
Such a system is being implemented today, in a very early form. It is the "trackback" system used by bloggers. Currently trackbacks are volantary on the linked to side, but it does not need to be so. If browsers polled the trackback servers themselves, they could easily display the links in a sidebar, regardless of what the linked to site thought about them.
(the one minor issue here is spamming... spammers would link to EVERYTHING)
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