By: Staff Reports Ticketmaster-CitySearch Online Loses Case In Court
A federal judge in Los Angeles yesterday ruled that Web sites can legally 'deep link' to
rival Web sites, The Associated Press reported.
U.S. District Judge Harry Hupp ruled against Ticketmaster-CitySearch Online which had
filed a lawsuit against Tickets.com for hyperlinking.
Ticketmaster argued that hyperlinking - the practice of providing a link from one site to
another - should be banned. The online ticketer argued it was losing advertising revenue due
to Tickets.com linking to pages that skipped the advertising-heavy home page.
In response to the ruling, the Gartner Group, a business technology adviser headquartered in
Stamford, Conn., released a press release stating that Ticketmaster could benefit from the
defeat by better utilizing sites such as Tickets.com for marketing purposes.
Gartner analysts said advertising revenue represents a small portion of overall revenue for
Ticketmaster. The company makes most of its money by brokering sales to events. Ticketmaster
could use Tickets.com, and other like-minded sites, as marketing and sales channels.
Gartner recommended that Ticketmaster change its advertising model to take advantage of its new
partners' referral activities.
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Staff reports
(c) Copyright 2000, Editor & Publisher
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