Japanese newspaper website restricts others to link to it

The website for Nikkei, the largest Japanese business newspaper, recently announced that it will be joining a growing number of British newspaper sites that charge users for access but added a severe twist to the policy, says major media outlets.

The newspaper website says it will require users to submit a written application for permission to link to the website, according to the New York Times. The Japanese website also disabled right-click abilities to prevent address link copying.

Nikkei says that links lead to stories being used as promotional tools that may be used out of context to inaccurately affect financial markets.

Yet the policy has received criticism from members of the Japanese blogosphere.

"Nikkei thinks it can go online, but cut themselves off from the wider Internet", Toshinao Sasaki, a tech writer, told the Times. "They just don't get it. The way forward is to link free content with paid content, and links play a big role there".

Although Japanese papers rely more on there print product for revenue, studies suggest that younger portions of the population go to news websites. A 2009 survey by Shimbun Tsushin Chosakai, a newspaper research group, found that 59 percent of Japanese consumers in their 20s and 47 percent in their 30s get news online.