Alex Johnson – Journalist at Large

Part of my job requires me to review potentially interesting stories NBC’s local stations are reporting. Today, many of them picked up a short AP piece on Jack Daniel’s announcing a new, slimmer bottle for its famous Old No. 7 whiskey.

Fine, I thought. I’ll see if I can find the actual announcement on Jack Daniel’s site.

I didn’t get that far.

Like nearly all liquor companies, Jack Daniel makes you verify your age before you can get past a splash screen. That’s fine; liquor companies would want to protect themselves from complications associated with appearing to market to minors.

But Jack Daniel goes much further than that. It has a link to something called a “linking policy” on its home page, and it’s pretty amazing.

Basically, Jack Daniel says that if you want to link to its site, you have to agree to 15 conditions — among them: “You will not challenge the validity of this Agreement or its binding effect or enforceability” and “You agree not to use the link on any web site that disparages the Brand, the Site, or the Brand’s products or services.” And you must fill out a form disclosing your name, residence and e-mail address.

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