When this kind of thing is done for business marketing purposes, it is understandable (albeit undesirable), but when it happens in a more academic setting, it lends credence to a redefinition – and subsequent abuse – of the term that is both premature and unhelpful.

For those of us not fortunate enough to be directly employed in this area, the multitude of (often unfamiliar) technologies and best practices related to the Semantic Web are hard enough to figure out and to keep up with, without prominent researchers casually redefining the vocabulary.

I say “casually” here, even though the document in questions does mention explicitly the deviation from accepted usage of the term, simply because there does not seem to be any actual reason to have done it, other than for a kind of convenience that is like calling a lettuce and tomato sandwich a BLT; after all it’s only a slice of bacon away.

While your tone was indeed a little “snooty”, and did not elicit a constructive response directly, the ensuing publicity might actually serve the point better. Hopefully a lot more people will now think twice before using the label Linked Data too loosely, not necessarily for fear of the Linked Data Police, but just for having thought about it at all…