Quote:
Originally Posted by Dephormation
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Google make money. Not from my copyright content, but from their adverts.
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I don't want to wade into a heated debate here but isn't it true to say that Google wouldn't exist if it couldn't scan pages and index websites, arguably breaching copyright in the process?
But as I said I don't want to stir controversy - seems like its been a hot afternoon!
---------- Post added at 18:24 ---------- Previous post was at 18:19 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by jelv
I've been thinking more about the robots.txt situation.
To stop Phorm pimping the information on our sites when visited by a user on a Webwise ISP I have to stop Google indexing my site.
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I see this as a very interesting topic. At the risk of poking the angry bear(s) (not a reference to Old Bear) I'd say that Phorm have a duty to identify themselves as an indexing or profiling engine of some sort.
I'm not sure of the laws or even the recommendations and RFCs but I feel it would be wrong for Phorm to use a browser user agent string when asking for robots.txt (but "okay" to mimic the browser agent of the user when transacting with the website - "okay" if you agree Phorm is okay in the first place!).
It would also clearly be wrong for it to impersonate any of the major indexing robots, which leaves them with 2 choices - use a unique identifier that sooner or later someone will work out as Phorm or leave it blank.