I understand that Blackwell's have a deal which they are making to
institutions in the HE community which involves institutions which sign up
to the deal agreeing to granting Blackwell's an exclusive right to promote
their service on the institution's Web site. The agreement is as follows
(note that Headfiller - http://www.headfiller.com/ - is owned by
Blackwell's):
"Headfiller shall have an exclusive right to promote and sell electronically
new and secondhand books, ebooks and other teaching materials in any format
though links from the University's Sites and/or intranet".
I assume this will mean that any organisation which signs up will not be
allowed to link to competitors such as Amazon. This strikes me as a
dangerous precedent (should central services be allowed to censor links to
legitimate organisations), very difficult to enforce (how will it be
policed, will links to Amazon be expected to be blocked at a firewall) and
also an unwise business decision (locking yourself into one organisation
with an exclusive deal).
Any comments on this?
What would you do if you find the marketing wing of your organisation had
signed up with this deal and the first thing you heard was when you were
asked to police it?!
Thanks
Brian
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Brian Kelly
UKOLN
University of Bath
BATH
BA2 7AY
Email: [log in to unmask]
Phone: (+44) 1225 323943
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