Connecticut Judicial Branch
Website Linking Policy Rev. 7/26/19
Policy
The
Judicial Branch website was created to educate the public about the duties
and responsibilities of the Judicial Branch, to save critical staff
resources and to enhance customer service. With these goals in mind, the
Judicial Branch website contains links to and from other websites that are
designed to facilitate free web-based legal research and to inform users of
Judicial Branch services. This policy delineates the procedures for linking
to and from the Judicial Branch website located at
www.jud.ct.gov or
www.jud2.ct.gov and for removing links.
= This map of Connecticut with an
arrow signifies an external link and notifies users that they will be
leaving the State of Connecticut Judicial Branch website.
Disclaimer
The Connecticut Judicial Branch exercises no control over the views, accuracy, copyright or trademark compliance or the legality of the material contained on third party sites and does not sponsor, endorse or approve the information, content, products, materials, opinions or services contained on such external sites. The responsibility for content, products, materials, opinions or services rests with the agencies or organizations that are providing the information. Visitors proceed to these external sites at their own risk. The Connecticut Judicial Branch specifically disclaims any and all liability from damages which may result from the accessing of a third party site which is linked to the Connecticut Judicial Branch website, or from reliance upon any such information.
Procedure to link TO the Judicial Branch
website:
- Permission to link to the state of Connecticut
Judicial Branch website is not required; however, such links may not:
- Capture www.jud.ct.gov or www.jud2.ct.gov pages within the site owner’s frames;
- Present www.jud.ct.gov or www.jud2.ct.gov content as that of the site owner;
- Misrepresent www.jud.ct.gov or www.jud2.ct.gov content; or
- Misinform users about the origin or ownership of www.jud.ct.gov or www.jud2.ct.gov content.
- Entities linking to the state of Connecticut Judicial Branch website should be aware that subpages within the Judicial Branch website may change from time to time; therefore, the linking entities may want to check the links periodically.
Procedure to provide a link FROM the
Judicial Branch website:
Criteria
Links contained throughout the Judicial Branch website are selected according to the following evaluation criteria:
- The external website provides accurate, current, free information that is helpful to Judicial Branch website users in a secure and user-friendly format and is ADA compliant.
- Links to .org, .gov, .edu, .fed.us, .mil, or other non-profit sites that provide information related to the Judicial Branch’s mission are preferred because of their general non-commercial, public-interest nature.
- Links to websites that are not government-owned or government-sponsored may be approved if these websites provide information and/or services in a way that is not available on an official government website.
- The external website’s content is relevant, useful and authoritative for Connecticut citizens and/or government officials.
- The external website provides the user with contact information.
- The site's content does not:
- Exhibit hate, bias, discrimination, pornography; insulting or otherwise offensive language;
- Contain support for candidates for office, political parties and referenda except that sites of news organizations are not automatically excluded from consideration because the news organization endorses a candidate for political office;
- Promote a particular religion; or
- Reasonably depict or describe violence or nudity and/or sexual activities.
- The external website is not the website of an attorney or law firm in private practice.
- Links to websites that are primarily commercial in nature (i.e., advertising a product or service, charging a usage fee, soliciting user information, etc,) may be approved if the Judicial Branch determines, in its sole discretion, that the website provides relevant and useful information to its constituency.
Review Process
- All requests to link the Judicial Branch website at
www.jud.ct.gov or
www.jud2.ct.gov to another website
must be submitted to
External.Affairs@jud.ct.gov and must contain the following
information:
- General information about the website being requested;
- Reasons why the link will be beneficial to users of the Judicial Branch site; and
- Current address of requested link (eg. < www.jud.ct.gov >);
- When a request for an external link is received, External Affairs will submit the request to the members of the Judicial Branch Web Planning Board. The Board will then review the request and verify that the request is in compliance with the Judicial Branch Website Linking Policy. The Board will then come to a decision by a majority vote.
- External Affairs will notify the requestor of approval or disapproval and will make arrangements to have the link added to the Judicial Branch website, if the link was approved.
Removal Process
Links from www.jud.ct.gov or www.jud2.ct.gov will be reviewed regularly and may be removed for any of the following reasons:
- The link no longer connects to the original information or resource to which it was intended to point;
- The link is inaccurate or misleading;
- The link or information within the link has become difficult to access due to non-standard formatting, lengthy download times, or intrusive advertising;
- The link is permanently unreachable or remains unavailable for a lengthy period;
- The link no longer conforms with this linking policy;
- Users of the externally linked site excessively burden the Judicial Branch support staff;
- The link is to a website that contains known copyright infringements; or
- The Web Planning Board finds, by a majority vote, that the content of the linked site is inconsistent with the goals of the Judicial Branch.