You May Not Link This Web Site

Ganon34 sent us a funny story about a company requiring permission to link their website. The company in question is KPMG, a financial and legal advisory company, and the article itself is an entertaining read about the aftermath of them sending demands that someone remove a link to their public web site. It's a pretty funny piece -- especially the part about KPMG's theme song. Also references the old ticketmaster vs ticet.com case that held up deep linking. It's all funny 'cuz its true. Their page could also use some testing since it doesn't render in my browser.

Suprise, suprise

[niola]

What do you expect from a company that hires people based on GPA and status of college? All of the major consulting companies, Bain, McKinsey, PWC, et al, they won't even interview you if your SAT scores, GPA, and College aren't "top notch." It is pretty sad, as if this is really a measurement of ability. These companies don't like anyone to be individual or think outside the box and it shows in their draconian policies.

--Jon

Their Policy

[jessohyes]

The following web link activities are explicitly prohibited by KPMG and may present trademark and copyright infringement issues:
Links that involve unauthorized use of our logo
Framing, inline links or metatags
Hyperlinks or a form of link that disguises the URL and bypass the homepage
For further statements and representations regarding the information provided on this site, please review the "Privacy Statement."

Obligatory "old news" post

[fjordboy]

JesusGeeks [jesusgeeks.net] has this hours ago! :)

KPMG [kpmg.com] doesn't want us to link to KPMG [kpmg.com]? That seems absurd! What if I want to link to KPMG [kpmg.com]? I should be able to link to KPMG [kpmg.com] if I want to! In fact, I will make use of that privelige right now!
KPMG [kpmg.com]
KPMG [kpmg.com]
KPMG [kpmg.com]
KPMG [kpmg.com]
KPMG [kpmg.com]
KPMG [kpmg.com]
KPMG [kpmg.com]

Site Builders

[stylewagon]

Here's a link to the company that built the site [blenderbox.com] for Razorfish.

*link via camworld

Re:Hehe. Marketing people get more inventive.....

[jheinen]

While the average Joe on the street may not know who they are, I can assure you that every corporate executive worth anything knows who they are (as a matter of fact, many high-ranking corporate executives worked for one of these firms at one time or another). KPMG is a powerhouse consulting firm, up there with McKinsey, Cap Gemini, Accenture, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Arthur Andersen, etc. They make billions in revenue and have thousands of employees.

Most people haven't heard of firms like this because it does them no good to market to the average consumer since their services are of no interest to them. Large corporations pay them millions however, and you can pretty much bet that just about every Fortune 500 firm is one of their clients. A mid-level consultant in one of these firms bills out at about $300-$400 per hour. They make huge sums of money and wield tremendous power in corporate America.

FuckedCompany.com

[chuckw]

This was also reported [fuckedcompany.com] on FuckedCompany a few days ago. An interesting discussion went along with it.

KPMG/KPMG Consulting craziness

[ZahrGnosis]

I work at KPMG Consulting; there really is a bizarre lifestyle here. I do LOVE the theme song. It was available on one of our international intranet sites; one of the more hip netherlandic teams had it commissioned as part of their morale-building exercises.

It worked, actually; everyone in the company has laughed about that for the past year. I guess it was only a matter of time before we got publicly ridiculed because of it. I wonder if it was leaked for publicity? Hmmmmm...

Re:Is this a theme song? (Re:Opinion Piece)

[andkaha]

So, does anybody know where this song originated?

It was for a Consultants' Conference in Frankfurt. See The Register [theregister.co.uk].

You will also find the song lyrics is in that article.

Not quite..

[baldeep]

That would be KPMG Consulting, not KPMG. (Two different companies).

Re:I wonder...

[garett_spencley]

Interesting... It doesn't seem to matter much.

See for yourself [google.com]

--
Garett

NOTHING that they do surprises me...

[PMCausey]

A long, long, time ago I worked for Peat Marwick Mitchell & Co. in Atlanta as a CPA at the time of the merger that created KPMG, and we had a lovely little explanation of what KPMG stood for (when the partners/managers/PHBs werent around):

Kiss Peat Marwick Goodbye

It was also the most stuffy, up-tight place I have ever had the single misfortune of working at.

It looks like it hasn't changed a bit in the last 15 years.

simple solution of KPMG

[gol64738]

here's a simple solution for KPMG.

only 'approved' referrors go into a control list. check the referrer on incoming connections, and if there's no match for the list, show a bad referer page.

so, what's the problem again?

Re:Lyrics

[dumpster_d]

This was painful to transcribe: mostly because I'm at work and trying to not burst out laughing:

KPMG:
We're strong as can be
A dream of power and energy
We go for the goal
Together we hold on to
Our vision of global strategy

We create
We elevate
We pass the ones that are la-ey-ate
A global shield
This is our dream of success
That we create

We'll be number one
#Whenever that comes?# [hard to make out]
Together each of us will run for gold
That shines like the sun in our eyes

Chorus [1st stanza]

The time is now
To lead the way
We share the same idea that may
Win by the end of the day
A friend that's here to stay

Identity
One energy
One strategy
With sypathy
These are the words
That can lead us to a new world

Chorus
Chorus
key-changed chorus
key-changed chorus a'la Gospel

Re:Hehe. Marketing people get more inventive.....

[jheinen]

Andersen Consulting was part of Arthur Andersen until the beginning of this year. Andersen Consulting filed suit to split completely from Arthur Andersen for a number of reasons, and as part of the settlement, Andersen Consulting lost the right to use the Andersen name. "Accenture" was chosen as the result of a contest within the firm to name the newly independent company. Accenture recently IPO'd and has been doing pretty well on the market. They have approximately 75,000 employes (twice the size of Microsoft) and revenue of over 11 billion last year.

Re:I wonder...

[Dominic_Mazzoni]

Google is doing what they're supposed to. Note that Google doesn't actually contain any quotes from their website, nor do they have a cached page.

However, Google still has kpmg.com in their database, probably because of other sites that link to it.

How many other's have this same policy?!?!?

[Papyrus]

My employer's Head WebMaster recently released the newly revised web policy manual that all of the various department webmonkeys have to abide by.

In that manual under the section titled "Linking Policy" is this paragraph:

Links may be made to the City of Virginia Beach Web site with the express written (hard copy or email) permission of the City Webmaster. Persons wishing to link to the City Web site may contact the City Webmaster for permission and linking procedures. When permission is received to link to the City's Web site, all hypertext links should be pointed to the City's homepage, http://VBgov.com.

I haven't yet inquired as to exactly what the intent of such an absurd statement is or how that would be enforced or how the world at large would even be aware of a policy that is (AFAIK)only referenced in a purely internal document posted on our intranet.

Just how many companies have such silly policies?

Perhaps I'll start "linkriot.com" whose sole purpose is to collect the URL's of and link to the sites of such misguided entities.

Re:Question: websites that are "not link free"

[Anonymous Coward]

"Any idea why?"

Did you by any chance try clicking on any of those "not link free" links? Specifically, this one:

http://www2u.biglobe.ne.jp/~APercher/u/faq_e.htm#l inkfree [biglobe.ne.jp]

;-D

DennyK

Already discussed at FC

[Anonymous Coward]

See Fucked Company [fuckedcompany.com] for a slightly livelier discussion on this subject. It was posted there few days ago already... And they um, 'slightly dislike' consultants, too, so it's good laugh for everyone involved! (only thing scummier than a consultant appears to be a head hunter...)

Re:HEY!!! I hosted their first web site!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

A bunch of countries have odd restrictions regarding their TLDs. Such as:

- Only registered companies may purchase a domain name, and it must be a name that the company is known by. (No "beer.pt" for a Portuguese brewery called 'The Tin Whistle', for example, to seize on a country/tld/name out of nowhere.)

- Only companies with their headquarters in this country may purchase a domain.

Just two of the latter is impossible to do.