Prevent Hotlinking

Is there anyway to prevent users from linking to images outside of the a specific domain?

I am doing this for the published server through IIS URL Rewrite, and it is working. But it would be nice if they were somehow limited to not being able to link to images outside of a specific domain within CM1 itself. Stopping them from doing it here, stops them at the source instead of after the fact (on the published server level)

I just thought i’d ask and/or throw this idea out there.

We want to do this because we want to avoid our users from accidentally linking to offensive content that we do not have control of (i.e. content outside of our domain). Or more likely when they first link to it it could be a normal image and then some random day the source owner replaces it with an offensive image. since we have no control over the content image they linked to, this could be problematic.

obviously setting up a workflow approval process for content would be one way to avoid such outside images from being linked to, but we have thousands of users and thus we just do not have the man power nor time to dedicate to such an approval workflow over so much content.

Hi Paul,

For this type of concern (which is perfectly valid, especially with such a large amount of end users) I would recommend exactly what you’ve already implemented: a server level rewrite rule blocking requests outside of a specified domain. Beyond constant reminders during end user training, I think this is going to be your best solution for now.