There are basically two solutions that we identified as most viable.  First is simply to include a "no deeplinking" policy within the Website copyright/disclaimer.  Second, a proposal by California software developer and Web writer, Dave Winer, suggests including a file called deepLinks.txt in Websites to say whether or not links are permitted into the Website, and if so, which subdirectories may be linked to.

LINKING POLICY STATEMENTS

Many companies are addressing their concerns about linking by creating policies. This seems logical -- if you don't want links pointing to your site, then say so. Are the linking policies legally binding? That is the question many companies and attorneys are trying to find out. Ticketmaster tried to use their linking policy as evidence that Tickets.com had broken the law by violating the "terms and conditions" of use. Because no cases have actually been decided by the courts, but rather settled by the parties involved, there is no binding legal precedence.

Take a look at some examples of linking policies:

Suny College at Brockport - The purpose of this policy seems to be about adding links to its own site.

Virtually New Orleans - This policy page focuses on adding links to its own site.  They view the links as advertisement for other commercial sites and basically chastise anyone who might think of asking for it free. 

Bell Atlantic - This is not a deep link.  To view their policy:

1. Go to the bottom of their home page
2. Select "Linking Policy"

This company has Outbound and Inbound policies.  The Inbound policy is specific about the use of its copyrighted logos and materials.  It expressly forbids deep linking without written permission.

Ticketmaster.com- This is not a deep link.  To view their policy:

1. Go to bottom of their home page
2. Select "Our Policies"
3. Select "Terms of Use"

Note the paragraph "Permitted Use."  Ticketmaster clearly states that they do not want ANY deep linking without authorization.

According to Dave Winer, in the early days of the web when search engines or other types of web "crawlers" first came into use, Websites that did not want to be included in such searches declared this by using the Robot Exclusion Protocol, still used today.

If you don't mind being searched and crawled, you don't have to have the necessary robot file, robots.txt. But if you have one, all robots are supposed to read it and respect it.  Winer calls robots.txt "a big 'People Only' sign."

DeepLinks.txt would operate the same way. The policy could be implemented by software running on your server which would make it impossible for others to link, or deep link, to your site. You would control which, if any, pages could be linked to. Winer offers it as "a respectful and professional way to let the outside world know that you don't want their flow." Should you choose not to include a deepLinks.txt file in your site, then any and all linking would be possible and permitted.

As linking is the very basis of the World Wide Web, some solution seems in order to maintain as much of the freedom and integrity of its original concept as possible.