Local Mac expert, and all-round nice guy, sets up (a really good) page to help Mac users figure out how e-bank with local bank sites, because most of them have no, or next to no, support for their Mac-using customers.
Instead of a thank-you note, Jim gets an email from HSBC's Hyperlink Police. They demanded he take down the link, and after he contacted them (I don't even know why you bothered, Jim), they magnimously permitted him to link, as long he signed a five-page agreement, dated 2003.
Yes, FIVE freakin' pages of legalese to make ONE link. That was when Jim decided he did not need this hassle, and just killed the link.
In this day and age, companies still believe they have the right to enforce a hyperlink policy. And to top it off, use it to harass non-customers who are helping their own customers bank with them more painlessly.
Clueless, absolutely clueless.
And no, I won't bother to link to their site. I don't want to sign some dumbass five-page legal document just to do it. Reminds me of Boing Boing's rant about sites with hyperlink policies.
Excerpt:
Received an email from HSBC Bank today asking me, no, demanding, that I remove a link to the bank’s website (which I cannot reproduce here) from my page about Internet Banking for Mac Users in Singapore.
I was told that I didn’t asked and was not given permission to put up the link to the bank and thus it was against their company’s hyperlink policy.
Hyperlink, i remembered is a major aspect of how Internet becomes what it is today. People link from one site to another, to help propagate or to promote. Yeah there are people who abuse that but then, I am not one of those. My page is not about bad services from the bank nor for that matter, anything negative or offensive. That page is about helping other Mac users in Singapore who might have trouble using e-services from major banks here.
