From: ct (tilley@att.net)
Date: Sun Feb 04 2001 - 23:26:23 MST
apologies for length (sorry Amara!)
no url available at this time
snipped when appropriate
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[BOT2001...(31JAN01)
Nandhra is the President and CEO of FINDbase.com
He just wants to put the smack-down on bots running amok across the
Internet, grabbing any data they can find with out the consent of the data
owners...
That, in a nutshell, sums up the mission of FINDbase.com, which uses
analysis products to locate, track, and if need be, stop bot activity
hitting protected Web sites...
If INFOtector discovers a bot, it can then implement one of several
responses, depending on the desires of the site's owners. It can deny
access, delay access to the point where the bot's user will give up and
move on, change the data being delivered, or relay the bot's request to a
welcoming page for the site...
Even a plain-vanilla search bot can cause hassles for a site, since it
could deep-link information on your site and bring surfers in through a
pathway you did not want them to take, perhaps leading it away from your
ad-revenue-generating pages...
One of the more creative measures INFOtector users could take when using
this product is actually feeding price comparison bots false information.
A customer using a bot may see the commerce site is selling Widget X for
$80, for example, far below the site's usual $100.
Is the bot-using customer getting a better deal than the customer who
surfed in by themselves from the Web? Not necessarily, Nandhra said. Once
the lower price pulls them in, the price in the shopping cart would
actually be $100.
Is this a case of false advertisement? Not at all, Nandhra explained, as
the owners of the e-commerce site would have already stipulated in their
copyright that the information they provide to customers is accurate--for
human users of browsers only. Bots would be excluded from this statement,
creating a caveat emptor situation for the bot users.
I raised the concerns some might have with what Nandhra is doing. After
all, Web sites do put this information up there for all to see, why should
his company prevent the fair use of a site's content?
"I suppose the knee-jerk reaction would be this," Nandhra said, "say you
have the ability to reach into somebody's wallet and pull money out. Is it
right?"
Upon additional reflection, Nandhra continued, "Sites are there to make
money. The Internet is freely accessible. Content should not be free."
Nandhra also said that INFOtector will now give people the ability to
track the distribution of any content from a client Web site and now give
Web site owners the ability to actually enforce copyright law on the
Internet, a process that until now has been very difficult.]
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