Where once the intention was to freely share and make available information, with increasing commercial activity it has become desirable, and probably necessary, to protect, defend and control access to web sites and their content. Although many web site owners seek to assert such control through the use of technology and linking agreements, others choose the courts. In such cases, web site owners and operators usually rely on copyright, trademark and unfair competition laws to limit access to their sites or, at the very least, control how the site is linked to, and by whom. The lawsuit ultimately resulted in a settlement whereby the defendant removed its frames and agreed to use only hypertext reference links to link the plaintiffs' web sites. Increasing consumer traffic to web sites, even at the expense of other sites, has also resulted in a fair share of litigation.
Most consumers find web sites initially by using a search engine.
Unscrupulous web site owners and operators can easily pirate metatags whole cloth from popular sites or simply use popular, sometimes trademarked, words as their metatags. Defenses to such lawsuits include the first amendment and the doctrine of fair use. In fact, in the recent Terri Welles case, the court denied Playboy Enterprises, Inc., a preliminary injunction relying, in large part, on the doctrine of fair use.