Deloris,
There are lots of options if we wish to implement them. One
is simply to require that anyone visiting a site must type
in a random password. I am sure we have all encountered
this and it does work. I don't think the Ancestry stunt
is something we will see frequently since there is a very
large cash outlay before they even start. For completely
unethical bots, and there are many already available, you
can ignore all the standard accepted internet practices and
harvest anything. As Paul said a few days ago, there is not
fool proof way to protect our data once it is available on
the internet. For the genealogy community at large, the
best practical option still seems to be to use proper
robots.txt files which all the major bots do respect. They
were designed that way and they work. What a real criminal
will do is another matter but shutting off the flow of
information is not something I would like to see happen. I
think we just have to deal with the technology as it emerges
and try to stay informed.
Nola
----- Original Message -----
From: "Deloris Williams" <delwilliams(a)insightbb.com>
To: <ncgenweb-discuss(a)rootsweb.com>
Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2007 9:05 PM
Subject: Re: [NCGENWEB-DISCUSS] Complaints from researchers
Nola and Elizabeth,
I entirely agree with what both of you are saying. My
point is, however, is
that this now opens up the idea for every Tom, Dick and
Harry Search engine
to do something similiar. Ancestry has created something
that no one even
thought of before, in their efforts to "create new avenues
of research".
But I think we have to be prepared for the same type of
thing to happen
again, I am sure some computer techy will figure out some
other way of
getting around with what we all have objected to in the
past few days about
Ancestry's database. There must be some kind of
compromise that will make
all sides happy, otherwise there is going to be more panic
among the
researchers and webpage owners alike. The question is,
are we going to
continue to worry about it and stop what we are doing, or
are we going to
try to come up with a plan that we all can live with?
Deloris
----- Original Message -----
From: "Nola Duffy" <nduffy(a)patch.net>
To: <ncgenweb-discuss(a)rootsweb.com>
Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2007 8:37 PM
Subject: Re: [NCGENWEB-DISCUSS] Complaints from
researchers
> Deloris,
>
> I imagine you did follow all the side-steps and mis-steps
> before they actually gave in. The first version, that
> was
> online less than 2 days, had every page cached and you
> could
> not find the URL of the real page and it was only for
> paying
> subscribers. That was dramatically different than what
> Google does. Their first concession was to make it free
> but
> even then the 2nd trial did not even allow you to know
> the
> URL you were viewing. The third time up the flag pole,
> they
> included the URL to the real pages. They then realized
> that
> thousands of pages had been taken offline and every blog
> that they had captured was showing pages designed to
> condemn
> their actions. Finally, this morning, the entire
> database
> was gone. It might have been a bit more logical if they
> had
> only tried it with Rootsweb which they do own, but they
> literally captured every site in the English speaking
> world.
> The database included all the copyrighted material on
> every
> college site and county historical or genealogy society
> in
> the country as well. They could have gotten away with it
> if
> they had done the ethical thing of letting the entire
> internet community know they intended to deploy their
> bot
> but they waited until they had captured the entire
> country,
> both private and commercial, before announcing it
> publicly
> and then it took a short while before they even gave the
> name of the bot.
>
> There was absolutely nothing that anyone could have done
> to
> prevent this because it was done with utmost secrecy.
> From
> what little I have learned, even Rootsweb was not told in
> advance. Now, we do know that the process has been
> patented
> and we can protect our data if we wish to do so. I for
> one
> still feel I owe it to everyone who has submitted
> copyrighted material to a site I host to protect their
> material from commercial exploitation.
>
> Nola
>
>
>
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