Free speech advocates are worried that a recent federal appeals decision could have a chilling effect on online journalists who use hyperlinks to direct readers to relevant, newsworthy sites that contain illegal material.

Even more troubling, the critics say, may be an emerging double standard in the way courts treat traditional print publishers and their online offshoots, especially when it concerns printing a controversial address in a newspaper vs. linking to it from a Web page.

The recent, high-level judicial guidance on the law of linking came about in a relatively overlooked part of a widely-reported decision two weeks ago in the so-called “DeCSS” case. NY Times