That’s what I really want to ask the folks over at Cingular AT&T Wireless, who’ve recently been called out by MobileCrunch for this legal policy prohibiting deep linking:

You are granted a limited, nonexclusive right to create a hypertext link to the homepage of the Sites, provided such link does not portray Cingular Wireless or any of its products and services in a false, misleading, derogatory, or otherwise defamatory manner. You may not use a Cingular or Cingular Wireless logo or other proprietary graphic or trademark of Cingular or Cingular Wireless to link to the Sites without the express written permission of Cingular Wireless. This limited right may be revoked at any time.

In other words, only links to cingular.com are allowed. Links to other pages, like cingular.com/cell-phone-service, are prohibited. AT&T Wireless can withdraw this “permission” to link, if they feel like it. Last but not least, you’re not allowed to link with criticism. Meaning you can’t link to AT&T’s claim of being driven by customer feedback in your latest rant about poor customer service.

Talk about asserting something that doesn’t exist! Even if AT&T has total control over the linking (which they don’t), they’d still be wrong. You have every right to link to a publicly available page, and it’s reasonable. Trying to stop people from linking to specific pages is like forcing readers to read from the beginning every time they open a book. And while it’s obvious why AT&T would want to limit links from negative commentary, saying “you can’t criticize and point to me!” is a bit disingenuous.

So why do companies like AT&T consider only links to their homepage acceptable? The answer of course, involves money:

Deep links…typically bypass the front page of a website. The problem, webmasters say, is that deep linking allows viewers to skip over the prime-area advertising that is typically placed on a website’s start page.

There’s no problem with companies controlling who can access their content. As owners, they should be able to profit from it. But declaring restrictions on a natural human activity—linking to a source and criticism—is as senseless as telling people what they can or can’t do with something that they bought. Especially when deep links and criticism can be more valuable than advertising.

Deep links bring visitors directly to what they’re looking for, making their online experience much more convenient. And convenience raises the chances for conversion or action. And we all know the benefits of a healthy dose of constructive criticism.

Check out this page on Internet law, and what the W3C says about deep linking.