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Creating a link usually requires no more than a few clicks, but when linking to the Irish Cancer Society, a 700-word “link request form” must be filled out.  According to the group, you’ll need to print and sign that form, and then fax it to the society’s headquarters, as well.

Or you could just link to the Irish Cancer Society, or even to the group’s link request form, anyway.  With a reference that Monty Python fans should immediately recognize, Jennifer Laycock asked the Irish Cancer Society, “What Are You Gonna Do…Bleed on Me?”

To be fair, the link request form seems designed to protect the group’s reputation - and the Irish Cancer Society does appear to be a respectable, fully functioning national charity.  Still, some of its terms of link use are a wee bit strange.

The very first one, for example, declares that “[a]ny text-only link must be clearly marked ‘Irish Cancer Society.’”  So, whether you were trying to praise the group or just call it a purple monkey dishwasher (as Richard Hearne did), the Irish Cancer Society would not want those words to link to it.

The second provision, that “[t]he link must point to the URL www.cancer.ie (i.e. the Society HomePage) and not to any other page within the Web site,” seems equally arbitrary.  Thanks to it, anyone trying to point you towards the disclaimer attached to the Irish Cancer Society’s message board would have to give you click-by-click directions instead of a simple link.

I can’t hold too much of a grudge against the group for this silliness - after all, the society works to stamp out cancer in the land of milk, honey, and Guinness.  But it seems like the Irish Cancer Society’s Webmaster could benefit from a trip or two to his local pub.