Via ARS Technica
By Nate Anderson | Published: September 18, 2008 – 05:34AM CT
R.E.M. once sang about “the end of the world as we know it,” but Michael Stipe & Co. never suspected that the brat-loving, cheese-eating, grain-growing Midwest might be the source of the world-ending scourge. But a pair of recent federal court cases coming from Wisconsin and Illinois have threatened to turn the most primitive functionality of the web—the hyperlink—into an “ask permission before linking” system.
Perhaps the full lyric should run, “It’s the end of the web as we know it, and I feel fine,” except that it’s hard to feel to great about the end of the web.
