Don’t link to Lowes.com unless you have the time to fax a license request to them.

Ars Technica has found that Lowes.com has a ridiculous policy on linking to them. They require that Web sites that link to them must fill out a form. The actual idea of having to receive permission to link to a Web site is pretty stupid. It’s a concept that has been dead for years.

It gets even more insane when you see that Lowes has three different licenses that users must sign when wanting to link to the Web site in different ways. The three ways are linking to Lowes and using their logo, linking to Lowes without using their logo and if both you and Lowes are linking to each other.

Once again, may I add for emphasis, that the only way to receive permission to link to Lowes is if you fax them a license request. Oh, by the way, Lowes has the right to terminate your license at any time.

Ars Technica contacted Lowes about this seemingly archaic policy to hopefully confirm that it’s just an old policy that they forgot to remove. Unfortunately, that is not the case:

“Managing link agreements is part of protecting our brand,” is the polite reply I received. “The process we have in place to handle links to lowes.com is a business decision.”

By the way, I found this awesome chainsaw on Home Depot that would be perfect for a zombie apocalypse. I hear Lowes has the better deal, but I’m awaiting to hear back on whether or not I have permission to link to it.

To read the absolutely ridiculous link agreement in its entirety, check it out below:

HypertextLinkAgreement_A