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Originally Posted by Maggy J
I nearly forgot.The question of copyright on webspaces..Isn't that open to abuse by everyone visiting a site.Surely the only way to stop it is to watermark images OR put nothing on a website that you do not want to be copied?
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Yes Maggy you are right. But - at the moment, for some websites dealing with this problem right now, the issue is not really copyright - it is the more fundamental issue that a website has the right to control access to its content - simply through the contractual arrangements laid down in website terms and conditions. For example - TalkTalk Group/Opal, BT Group, and CableForum) include in their Terms of Use clauses such as: (quoting Opal specifically below)
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"This page (together with the documents referred to on it) tells you the terms of use on which you may make use of our website. Please read these terms of use carefully before you start to use the site.
By using our site, you indicate that you accept these terms of use and that you agree to abide by them. If you do not agree to these terms of use, please refrain from using our site."
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Some sites, on becoming aware of this trial, have notified TalkTalk specifically that they do NOT grant TalkTalk consent to access their content for this sort of monitoring, except on specifically notified conditions, and have done so using very similar terms to those specified by the TalkTalk group themselves on their own site - as quoted above.
TalkTalk seem to be denying specifically that other websites have a right to exercise such a control, despite claiming the identical right for their own website.
There is also the issue of whether the TalkTalk system observes a website robots.txt terms - it does not identify itself with a useragent - and the evidence about whether it observes robots.txt is so far, ambiguous, with different websites seeing different behaviour. With well behaved search bots, robots.txt can be used to limit, or even totally deny access to all bots or some of them selectively, and also to specifiy some directories where a bot MAY crawl and others where it is denied. As for example CableForum does.
If TalkTalk's monitoring system DOES observe robots.txt then it won't be much good for detecting malware - and if it DOESN'T respect robots.txt then webmasters are going to be taking other steps to control it, both through legal action, and technical blocking measures (for example via their .htaccess file or other means).
As far as copyright goes - it's a much more challenging isse - particularly to enforce. But sites such as Ryanair, have in the past, vigorously protected their content from what they have described as "screen scraping" by those who want to make commercial use of their pricing data and flight timetables, but without consent - and there have been other cases too but I don't know the details. A website certainly COULD take civil copyright action against TalkTalk, but it would be an expensive business, and only a site with the resources would be able to tackle it. The issue of trying to get the authorities to pursue a criminal coyright abuse is also difficult - although theoretically available, where copyright material is used for commercial purposes, without consent.
And then of course there are the larger legal issues about whether the TalkTalksystem complies with DPA/PECR/MCA/RIPA - but those are for the enforcement authorities and the criminal law rather than a civil matter between a website and TalkTalk. The ICO has reserved judgement on the DPA/PECR issue so far and an investigation is ongoing.
At some point I imagine some websites may also pursue action against TalkTalk on the basis of restraint of trade or other legal remedies because they object to TalkTalk restricting customer access to their sites.
That should give you a summary of where some websites are coming from on this issue at the moment.
---------- Post added at 07:54 ---------- Previous post was at 07:51 ----------
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Originally Posted by bluecar1
which when combined with the fact huawei have systems patented that categorise webpages, and the fact the IP address used intiailly to follow people was the radius servers what more do you want?
and yes ignitionnet i am aware you can have multiple machine share the same IP so long as they do not share the same port id, but in my experience it would be odd to have something like a radius server nat'ed behind a firewall etc
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The Huawei patent appliction can be seen here
http://v3.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/originalDocument?CC=EP&NR=2139181A1&KC=A1&FT=D&dat e=20091230&DB=EPODOC&locale=en_GB