From Jon Dube at Cyberjournalist.net:
UPDATE FROM CMP (6/25): CMP says it did not intend to block incoming links from Google News. One possibility for how that mistake occurred is that we may have inadvertently installed a broader block while we were evolving our blocking strategy," writes Mike Azzara, CMP's vice president in charge of Internet business.
Azzara also said that the blocking page displayed above hasn't been operational for some weeks, although it is still viewable as of today. "We have replaced it with a page that intercepts a visitor, explains our position on matters of competitors stealing our content, and then allows the visitor to proceed to their originally clicked-for destination," he said.
"...For the record, no referral from any Google site should see any blocking page at all, ever," he said.
This makes more sense. It's certainly within CMP's rights to want to block incoming links from competitors, though the new strategy makes much more sense, because that still allows readers to read their content (and see their ads).
CMP appears to be handling this smartly; nevertheless, this case is a very good example of how blocking technology isn't foolproof.
