WebProNews » Archive

It’s Criminal: Old Bailey Trials Online

WebProNews Staff — Thu, 01 May 2008 17:52:17 +0000

Trial documents dating back as far as 1674 recorded for cases heard at London’s Old Bailey arrived online thanks to the work of a group of universities.

If you sought something through search and found a document stamped with that date, you might think your search engine of choice developed time travel. Modern technology and effort made the Old Bailey Online site possible.

As Resource Shelf noted, nearly 200,000 cases have been indexed and archived for visitors to the website. It’s a remarkable achievement:

Professor Robert Shoemaker, head of the Department of History at the University of Sheffield, and co-director of the project, said: “It is now possible to search records of 197,745 individual trials, running to 110,000 pages of text and some 120 million words.”

“Up until now this treasure trove of social, legal and family history has only been available to a few dedicated historians who were prepared to spend months peering at microfilm.”

One entry from the earliest day we could find for the records, April 29, 1674, showed Old Bailey lived up to its reputation as The Hanging Court. “There was another had Judgment to be hanged for Robbing one Thomas Feild in the Kings High-way near Enfield , and taking from him 4 pound [Text unreadable in original.] Shillings,” it reads.

Theft and burglary seemed rife in Jolly Olde England. Punishment existed in equal measure; instead of a revolving door jail system, the only revolving was done by the cooling corpse of the hanging prisoner, at the end of its noose.

To our amazement, we found something in the earliest Ordinary Account we could locate that looked almost modern. At the end of the Account after the condemned are hanged, there are advertisements, one of which comes from a doctor claiming a deafness cure.

Sounds almost like something you’d see in spam, doesn’t it?

News Corp-LinkedIn Acquisition Rumors Myth?

David Berkowitz — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 21:03:12 +0000

So perhaps the News Corp-LinkedIn acquisition rumors are a myth anyway: Link: TechCrunch UK ? Blog Archive ? Who needs LinkedIn when you have MySpace?.

Apparently, the story goes on to say, News Corp’s Fox Interactive Media (FIM) executives have come up with an elegant solution which means they won’t have to splash out on a billion dollars for LinkedIn:

FIM President Peter Levinsohn told Reuters last week that MySpace plans to let its users create different profiles to attract different contacts, such as personal friends, business contacts or family members.

If this is the case, the biggest problem with MySpace isn’t that it’s old hat or its growth is slowing or it has too many ads. None of that matters if it has no clue who its users are and what they’re doing on the site. I am friends with a number of business contacts on MySpace, but I don’t know of anyone using it for business purposes, and they’re not going to start just because there are a few new profile settings. Though perhaps some of the invite spam that comes along will now say "BubblesHot4U69Tonyte wants to be your business contact on MySpace."

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Excelsior! Marvel Launches Digital Comic Archive

WebProNews Staff — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 16:31:22 +0000

The comics industry has suffered through years of flagging readership and lower demand for titles, but Marvel may have powered up a way to a resurgence for their work.

An online subscription model that permits the reading of thousands of long out of print comics could be the key to a cash infusion at Marvel. Anyone with nostalgia for the early days of Spider-Man, or a desire to catch up on some more recent titles, will be the target audience.

With customary superheroic drama, the publisher has dubbed the program Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited. They offer monthly and annual subscription options, the annual option priced under $60.

The new program seems to have found plenty of interest on the Internet, as accessing Marvel’s website at times proved impossible. Marvel did make some 250 comics available for free reading online, as an enticement to pony up for a subscription.

New and very recent titles won’t be part of the program, as Marvel sensibly does not want to undercut the comic stores, on and offline, that sell them. However, making older titles available for an inexpensive subscription could hamper demand for the printed version of now-rare issues.

Such relatively inexpensive and broad availability of titles that made their marks on a younger audience may find favor with those now-grownup and working people. On a personal note, I’m looking forward to re-reading the first 24 issues of Excalibur, from the time when Alan Davis and Chris Claremont worked on the title, as well as Warren Ellis’ two-year run.

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NASA To Digitize Space Images

Mike Sachoff — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 19:41:47 +0000

NASA and the Internet Archive are partnering to scan, archive and mange the agency’s large collection of photographs, film and video. The imagery will be available online and free to the public.

NASA To Digitize Space Images

Right now, NASA has over 20 major imagery collections online. With this partnership, those collections will be available in one searchable archive of NASA imagery.

"Making NASA’s important scientific and space exploration imagery available and easily accessible online to all is a service of tremendous value to America, and we’re pleased to partner with the experts at Internet Archive to accomplish this effort," said Robert Hopkins, chief of strategic communications at NASA Headquarters, Washington.

Under the terms of the non-exclusive five year agreement, Internet Archive will digitize, host and mange still, film and computer-generated imagery from NASA. Internet Archive will consolidate NASA’s major imagery collection in the first year. In the second year, digital imagery will be added to the archive and the third year analog imagery will be added to the online collection.

"We’re dedicated to making all human knowledge available in the digital realm," said Brewster Kahle, digital librarian and founder of Internet Archive. "The educational value of the images NASA has collected during the course of its five decades of scientific discovery is unprecedented."

"Digitizing NASA’s imagery is a big step in Internet Archive’s ongoing efforts to digitize a vast spectrum of content and make it freely accessible to the public in an easily searched online destination."

Ebert And Roeper Move Online

Mike Sachoff — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 21:36:18 +0000

The popular movie review show "At The Movies with Ebert & Roeper" is launching a Website that will host a collection of video movie reviews.

The new site is called "The Balcony Archive" and will have 5,000 reviews, searchable by movie title, director and actor. Users will be able to watch current reviews and past reviews covering 20 years including "Siskel & Ebert" as well as the current" Ebert & Roeper."

New DVD release reviews will be posted to the site after each weekly broadcast of "Ebert & Roeper"and the entire collection will be available online.

"For years this was a dream," said Roger Ebert. "Now I am exhilarated that it is a reality, thanks to the enormous effort of digitizing something like 1,000 programs."

"It is always fascinating to go back and see what was being said about a film before it opened. The disagreements, between me and Siskel and Roeper, will be fun to revisit, and even more exciting will be our sense of discovery when we find something like ‘Boyz N the Hood,’ ‘Fargo,’ ‘Hoop Dreams,’ or ‘Monster.’ I may start searching around in this archive and never stop!"

Webmaster Settles With IA, Goes After Teenager

WebProNews Staff — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 22:42:34 +0000

One of the most bizarre Internet stories this year gets more bizarre. Internet Archive and Suzanne Shell have resolved their lawsuits against each other "amicably," a word that follows words like "theft" and "racketeering" about as well as toothpaste follows orange juice. Next on her list: a 15-year-old Canadian jokester.

The case came to light last month when IA sought a court ruling that its WayBack Machine, which crawls and indexes copies of websites for historical purposes, wasn’t violating Shell’s copyrights.

Shell, who claimed IA’s web crawler entered into a contract while indexing, responded (quite reasonably, I might add) with a countersuit accusing IA of conversion, civil theft, breach of contract, and violations of both federal racketeering and Colorado organized crime legislation.

It was an important case, not necessarily because of its overall merit (all but one claim was immediately dismissed), but because the judge would have to consider whether or not spiders could enter a contract, and the world was listening.

Seems the judge won’t be able to make that declaration any time soon, as IA and Shell seem to have kissed and made up, issuing a joint statement about the settlement.

“Internet Archive has no interest in including materials in the Wayback Machine of persons who do not wish to have their Web content archived," said an IA spokesperson in a statement.

"We recognize that Ms. Shell has a valid and enforceable copyright in her Web site and we regret that the inclusion of her Web site in the Wayback Machine resulted in this litigation. We are happy to have this case behind us.”

Shell seems to have gotten over it, too. “I respect the historical value of Internet Archive’s goal," she said. "I never intended to interfere with that goal nor cause it any harm,” said Ms. Shell.

That’s interesting…could have sworn she sued them for theft, racketeering, and organized criminal activity. But if both say they settled it amicably, then who am I to question? Maybe IA just didn’t want to give the judge a chance to rule that web crawlers could actually enter a contract.

The statement ends with this gem:

Both parties sincerely regret any turmoil that the lawsuit may have caused for the other. Neither Internet Archive nor Ms. Shell condones any conduct which may have caused harm to either party arising out of the public attention to this lawsuit. The parties have not engaged in such conduct and request that the public response to the amicable resolution of this litigation be consistent with their wishes that no further harm or turmoil be caused to either party.

The turmoil they’re talking about may include 15-year-old Canadian and Digg.com user Jeff Veillette, who issued a kind of online challenge to Shell by framing her entire site, daring her to take action against him. While brazen, Shell claims it went well beyond framing.

If you visit her website, profane-justice.org (careful, you’re entering into a contract with an anti-child protective services activist), Shell posts Veillette’s name, home address, emails, and phone number after accusing him of hacking her website and setting up a pop-up spam campaign, viewable by 25 million people and defaming her. Shell says he expressly admitted to the hacking and spam campaign.

She includes blogger Billy Wiseman (a guy she really, really doesn’t like) in the accusation, listing his address as well. The FBI Computer Crime Center was contacted.

However, in an interview with WebProNews, hacking and spamming came as news to Veillette, who says his personal information listed is outdated (remember, at 15, he’s a minor — is it legal to post a minor’s information online? Maybe the FBI needs to give her a call). Jeff denies hacking her site or spamming anyone, but does admit to framing her site elsewhere, an act we reported when it happened.

As for Wiseman, Veillette says he had nothing to do with any of it. "Billy Wiseman wasn’t part of the attacks," he said. "He was a blogger that was watching the Shell case and interviewed me."

"What happened was I put the site in a frame. How that’s hacking I’ll never know."

So Shell never lost control of her site?

"Nope," said Veillette. "She ran out of bandwidth for her hosting."

So, has the FBI been in touch?

"Nope. They probably laughed at this, too. What I’m wondering overall, though, is if she’s for supporting kids, why is she going out of her way to try and ruin a 15-year-old’s life?"

Good question, Jeff. I’m sure, though, she never meant any harm.

Financial terms of the settlement between Shell and Internet Archive were not disclosed.

BBC Moves Forward With Online Archive, iPlayer

Doug Caverly — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 21:33:09 +0000

It’s only for a six-month trial period, and it involves just 20,000 people in the UK, but something important has transpired – part of the BBC archive went online. And if everything goes well, we can look for all of that audio and video to become much more widely available.

In fact, it appears that the BBC is intent on making everything go well; the company has been focused on IPTV for quite some time, as this old Ars Technica article proves. Also, in August of 2006, Ashley Highfield, head of the BBC’s Future Media, said, “We’ve got one of the world’s largest archives, if not the largest archive . . . . We ought to liberate it and make it available, how, when, and where our audience would like to consume it.”

Today, the British Broadcasting Corporation described its new trial as a step towards that goal: “The pilot is part of the BBC’s plans to eventually offer more than a million hours of TV and radio from its archive.”

And Ashley Highfield again spoke on the subject. “It will test what old programmes people really want to see,” he said, “from Man Alive to The Liver Birds, how they want to see them – full length or clip compilations, and when they want them – in ‘lean-forward’ exploratory mode similar to web surfing, or as a scheduled experience more akin to TV viewing.”

There was also news from the BBC relating to that sort of “TV viewing” – the corporation intends to make its much-anticipated iPlayer service (“offering catch-up TV via the web and cable TV”) compatible with Apple computers.

With all these UK-specific developments, it’s not a bad time to be a Brit.

Looking at DoubleClick’s Past

Philipp Lenssen — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 16:06:19 +0000

Google News Archive search is a nice way to recap coverage of a person or company throughout the years. Here are bits and pieces of past DoubleClick coverage.

While lots of coverage deals with DoubleClick in regards to privacy criticism, and I’m sure lots of it is based on real issues, we also need to keep in mind that news sometimes hype privacy issues (think of the stories that erupted when Gmail came along with targeted ads, for instance). On the other hand, there’s the fact that privacy policies are simply not always adhered to by the companies that put them forth, and users have little ways to measure this (and are left to rely on faith).

So will Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick increase privacy issues? Already, Google through Gmail, search and such pretty much knows everything about you when you’re logged in, and other issues (like Google’s cookie life-time, or Gmail ads) are almost negligible in comparison. It doesn’t get anymore private than email, spreadsheets, docs and search, so if you don’t trust Google (your mileage may vary), don’t log-in, and don’t store your data on their servers! The only additional risks in this acquisition might be increased potential for Google to track users and user movement (through the network of sites utilizing DoubleClick, among other DoubleClick data), as well as Google’s existing data becoming available to an even larger circle of tools, companies & people – with sometimes, new chances of correlating information.

HighBeam Research in April 1996 writes:

DoubleClick: ’We’re no peeping Toms.’ (…)

Go surf the Internet – and, a few cynics allege, have your privacy invaded by DoubleClick Inc.

DoubleClick is a media-buying division and service recently launched by New York-based Poppe Tyson featuring a software program that can monitor an Internet browser’s every move through Web sites in the DoubleClick media network.

Diane Filippi, a spokesperson for DoubleClick, defends the company by noting that names and addresses are kept confidential

CNet in November 1996 says:

Ads find strength in numbers

Ad networks have become popular so quickly because Internet ad networks promise some of the most highly targeted advertising available. Networks such as DoubleClick, today’s leading network, for example actually collect Internet user and organization profiles. Advertisers then design their ads for a specific audience by selecting from a wide range of criteria about the kind of customer they are trying to reach. When a user hits a Web site that is a member of the ad network, the sites knows to display the advertising banner that best matches the user’s or organization’s profile.

Wired in March 1997 writes:

DoubleClick Tries to Force Hand into Cookie Jar

DoubleClick Software is fighting to save its business life.
That’s because a subcommittee of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has written a standards draft for tracking cookies that would threaten the ability of DoubleClick and other Web ad agencies to silently track user movements between sites run by clients on their advertising networks. Without this information, DoubleClick said it can’t count unique users, and therefore cannot send its custom-picked ads to users.

CNet in August 1997 reports:

DoubleClick networks in Asia

Internet advertising network DoubleClick announced today that it will launch DoubleClick Japan, a network focused on the Pacific Rim.

CNet in March 1998 writes:

DoubleClick hot, set to expand

DoubleClick (…) has captured Wall Street’s attention, and now faces the challenge of proving the value of Internet advertising to mainstream America.

The company went public during a hot period for tech IPOs and its shares have risen along with those of other Internet stocks. But it still faces stiff competition in an unproven market, as well as a privacy controversy about its product.

TheStreet.com in July 1998 writes:

DoubleClick’s Double Talk

On June 30, the Internet advertising-placement company put out a statement saying it had the “third largest audience reach on the Internet behind America Online (…) and Yahoo! (…), according to Media Metrix,” which measures Web site use. (…)

Never mind that Media Metrix disavowed the release. After all, throwing seemingly good news on fiery Net stocks makes them erupt. Wall Street pushed shares of DoubleClick as high as 77 1/8 from 49 11/16 in just four days.

Now, with the stock back at 44 5/8, DoubleClick is backpedaling. “We compared apples to oranges just to prove a point,” says Amy Shapiro, a company spokeswoman. “It was misleading. We didn’t explain it clearly enough … and we realize that we should have explained more clearly what we were trying to say.”

CNet in October 1998 writes:

DoubleClick launches ad service

DoubleClick, the company known for creating an advertising network that plants cookies in people’s browsers, today is introducing a program that allows advertisers to even further target their ads to users. (…)

DoubleClick gets information from Web surfers by planting cookies – digital tags that remain on a user’s computer every time a surfer visits a site in the DoubleClick network. (…)

While privacy advocates have at times complained about the practice, DoubleClick says it maintains privacy because it never actually identifies people by name – just by their digital codes.

Once the cookie is planted, the surfer is then identified every time she visits another site in the network. Each time she does something on the site, DoubleClick can add the information to its database about that user.

With the service Boomerang, it can use the information to send specific targeted ads to the customer. If, for instance, the Web user shops for ties on one site, and later she goes to another unrelated site in the network, the site selling ties can send her an ad

Wired in June 1999 reports:

Groups Keep Heat on DoubleClick

Consumer privacy groups urged stockholders of a marketing firm to block a proposed merger of the company with a Net advertising firm.

“This open letter urges you to disapprove the proposed merger of Abacus Direct and DoubleClick, and to demand disclosure from the companies on certain key questions affecting it,” the letter to DoubleClick shareholders said.

Also in June 1999, CNet writes:

DoubleClick not worried about privacy charges

DoubleClick says it hasn’t received any complaints about the pending merger, and that no consumer groups have contacted the company directly.

“We don’t think it’s an issue,” said Kevin Ryan, DoubleClick’s president.

“I’ve been very active on the online privacy issues with the FTC since 1997,” he added. “We spent a lot of time on this in discussing the merger – if consumers are not happy, neither one of us has a business.”

The Washington Post in February 2000:

DoubleClick Is Probed On Data Collection

Michigan’s attorney general said she will file suit against DoubleClick under that state’s consumer laws. DoubleClick’s consumer monitoring “is a secret cyber-wiretap,” said Attorney General Jennifer M. Granholm. “The average consumer has no idea that they are being spied upon,” she said, and that lack of warning constitutes “a deceitful practice under our consumer-protection act.”

The probes come as privacy advocates have stepped up their criticism about DoubleClick’s business practices. Last week, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a privacy advocacy group, filed a formal complaint with the FTC, accusing DoubleClick of unfair and deceptive trade practices and demanding an immediate investigation.

EPIC’s complaint alleged that DoubleClick was unlawfully tracking the online activities of Internet users, combining their surfing records with detailed personal profiles contained in a national marketing database of a firm DoubleClick recently acquired. That practice, EPIC charged, ran counter to an earlier promise by DoubleClick that the information it collected on Internet users would remain anonymous.

The Register in June 2000 writes:

Another day, another DoubleClick privacy PR disaster

DoubleClick has been caught mucking around with personal privacy – again. The world’s biggest online ad sales house has been caught gleaning email addresses and other personal information from Web site customers – without the knowledge of Web sites.

DoubleClick says the transmission of personal data from the unwitting Web sites was “inadvertent”. And no, it’s not using the info to target consumers.

“We don’t save it, or keep it at all,” Jules Polonetsky, DoubleClick’s privacy officer (…) told AP. “It won’t ever be involved in how we deliver ads.”

CNet in October 2000 reports:

DoubleClick buys direct emailer for $191 million

Online advertising company DoubleClick today said it will acquire NetCreations, an opt-in email marketing service, for $191 million in stock.

The deal adds to DoubleClick’s existing email marketing resources. The company now will be able to help Web marketers reach consumers by tapping NetCreations’ database of 15 million email addresses, on top of its own 7 million addresses. DoubleClick handles online advertisements for companies and sells anonymous information about people’s surfing habits to help advertisers better target their messages.

Forbes in December 2000 writes:

DoubleClick Loses A Customer, Causes Jitters

Although DoubleClick is the undisputed leader in the Internet advertising space, speculation that it could lose its ad-serving customer base has sent the stock plummeting. (…)

Shares of DoubleClick went from bad to worse, falling from an opening trade on Monday of $35.62 to a close of $28.50 on Tuesday, a drop of about 20%.

In January 2001, USA Today reports:

FTC clears DoubleClick

The Federal Trade Commission on Monday ended its investigation into the data collection practices of DoubleClick, the nation’s largest Internet advertising company. The FTC began its investigation in February 2000, questioning whether DoubleClick improperly amassed personal information about Internet users. In a letter to DoubleClick’s attorney, Christine A. Varney, trade commission official Joel Winston wrote: “DoubleClick never used or disclosed” consumers’ personal identifying information “for purposes other than those disclosed in its privacy policy.” (…)

The complaints against DoubleClick were sparked by the company’s $1.7 billion purchase last fall of direct marketing company Abacus and DoubleClick’s plans to cross-reference its records of consumers’ online habits with a Abacus database that includes names and other identifying data. The company eventually scrapped those plans.

In July 2001, CNet writes:

DoubleClick: Web ad market isn’t improving

The online advertising market won’t get better this year, DoubleClick executives said Tuesday after reporting second-quarter results. (…)

Although DoubleClick is taking market share from rivals, the overall industry remains in a slump. Growth in online ads has plummeted since early 2000.

In January 2002, CNet writes:

DoubleClick turns away from ad profiles

Online advertising company DoubleClick has phased out its Internet ad profiling service as part of its shift from media services, proving consumer tracking doesn’t always pay.

The New York-based company jettisoned its “intelligent” targeting service effective Dec. 31, a company representative confirmed Tuesday. Launched in 2000, the product allowed marketers to target ads based on a database of some 100 million profiles. The technology tracked people online anonymously and then served ads based on personal tastes. (…)

In the last 16 months, DoubleClick has worked to deflect its dependence on the sickly advertising market. It has built up its research, data and technology divisions while slowly dismantling its media division.

TheStreet.com in February 2002 writes:

DoubleClick Finds an Uncomfortable New Privacy

(…) What happened? In part, it was the dot-com flameout. What looked at the time like steadily increasing advertising revenue was actually just cheap venture capital-provided money looking for places to be spent. When the VCs disappeared, so did the ad spending.

CNet in May ~~2001~~ 2002 reports:

DoubleClick able to settle privacy suits

DoubleClick on Tuesday received federal court approval to settle state and federal lawsuits that charged the Net advertising company with violating the privacy of Internet surfers.

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York granted final approval of the class-action settlement agreement, which requires DoubleClick to provide consumers with a privacy policy that will clearly describe in “easy-to-read sentences” its online ad-serving service, use of cookies, as well as other services and technologies.

The settlement also requires the company to purge certain data files of personally identifiably information, including names, addresses, telephone numbers and e-mail addresses. Among other provisions, the settlement requires DoubleClick to obtain permission, or so-called opt-in agreements, from Internet surfers before it can tie personally identifiable information with Web surfing history. (…)

Moreover, the company will retain an independent accounting firm that will conduct an annual review regarding DoubleClick’s compliance of the settlement.

Wired in August 2002 writes:

DoubleClick to Open Cookie Jar

For years, ad-serving cookies have crept about the Web like silent, virtual stalkers – tracking surfers as they hop from site to site in the name of targeted marketing.

Now, Net users may finally get a glimpse of some of the data such tracking applications collect.

As part of a settlement with regulators in 10 U.S. states, the Internet ad-serving firm DoubleClick said it will begin allowing Web users to view some of the records it compiles through the use of cookies.

The feature, described by the New York Attorney General’s office as a “cookie viewer,” will show the categories in which DoubleClick (…) has placed individuals, based on information about their surfing habits. DoubleClick uses the category system to sell advertising targeted to particular interest groups.

It’s unclear when the cookie viewer will actually be available, however.

BusinessWeek in February 2004 writes:

A Quiet Comeback for DoubleClick

Remember DoubleClick (…)? Investors haven’t heard much lately about this once high-flying online advertising play. Formerly ranked among the Internet’s blue chips, the stock fell from grace, along with hopes that online ads would ever become a profitable business. DoubleClick traded as low as $5 in the depths of the bear market in 2002.

Now it’s early 2004, and the online ad business is enjoying a handy comebac

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Internet Archive V. Shell: The Publicity Aftermath

WebProNews Staff — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 17:38:02 +0000

After news of Suzanne Shell’s countersuit against Internet Archive surviving by the thread of one non-dismissed claim – the claim that Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine web crawler was guilty of breach of contract by ignoring the site’s terms of use – hit the cyber circuit, a real catfight hissed and scratched its way across the weekend.

You might call it a "flame war," in the traditional Internet sense, but that’s hardly accurate.

Besides the ensuing vitriol, the interesting twists the case puts on Internet copyright law, and the implications of what happens as a result of the case, at the end of the day there are incredible juxtapositions afoot. Specifically, a child has issued a challenge to a woman dedicated to protecting the rights of accused child abusers.

Though one may be hesitant to readily accept Shell’s cause – both her countersuit and her response to the "Internet Geeks" lambasting her toe the line of the extreme by demanding punishment of Internet Archive beyond, by some standards, what might be considered reasonable, and by use of what may be considered extensive abusive language in her FAQ (PDF) about the case – Shell manages to effectively illustrate the shortcomings of cyber-mobs unable to channel their anger into intelligible language carrying anything that might be called "gravitas."

Yes, we’ve certainly addressed the "weight-class," if you will, of the average Digg.com user, and we generally didn’t like what we found out.

Let’s review and clarify. When Shell discovered that Internet Archive had copied and displayed 87 versions of her website, profane-justice.org, she demanded the company pay $100,000 in licensing fees, according to John Ottaviani. Shell has a notice on her site announcing that copying pages from the site carried some pretty stiff fees. Internet Archive’s crawler copied the site for use on the Wayback Machine, an act Shell says is agreeing to the contract. There is some precedent for machines entering contracts, which makes this case all the more interesting.

Internet Archive refused to pay the licensing fees and sued Shell in a Colorado court seeking judgment that no violation of copyrights had occurred. Shell countersued, alleging copyright infringement, conversion, civil theft, breach of contract, along with federal and state-level racketeering. All but the breach of contract claim have been dismissed.

Shell is quick to note in this aftermath, that her case is not about the legitimacy of search engine spidering, but about copying and displaying. She defends Google’s and other engines’ fair use of Internet content for indexing purposes.

The story really came to light last Friday, though the case has been pending for nearly a year and a half. After that, a mob of so-called "iGeeks" began shooting off emails to Shell with threats of hacking her site, calling her a "moron," a "stupid whore," a "retard," and calling her lawsuit "a joke." Most of these emails were sent anonymously, Shell points out, climaxing with a threat to murder and sodomize Shell’s children. Shell has subsequently claimed, according Digg.com, that she is tracing phone calls and plans to press charges.

Shell responds in vitriolic kind in an FAQ published on the site over the weekend, accusing anonymous emailers of being cowards, unintelligent, rude, macho, nasty, sick, scary, and abusive, in as many different terms as she (or the writer of the FAQ) can find.

And she makes a good case for it. Say what you want about the merits of her seemingly overly-punitive countersuit, or even the cause in life to which she is devoted, but the breach of contract claim is an important one to explore in a time of uncertain copyright limitations.

Those that would argue Internet Archive is within its rights to copy and preserve at will, that the "opt-out" standard is acceptable in this age of boundless information, would be better served if their anonymous emails, if they must remain anonymous, had some sort of bite beyond petty, immature, misspelled, informal, and uncalled-for abuse.

Flaming, on the Internet and in life, just doesn’t win an opponent to your cause. Perhaps part of this is due to the orbitofrontal cortex, the brain’s regulatory center for appropriate speech that takes facial and body language cues to control what comes out of the amygdala, or the nastiness center. Anonymity coupled with lack of empathy-inspiring cues from the other side cause this process to halt, according to some researchers.

But it may speak more about an online culture more acutely coming into conflict with the real world, and a youthful base, that hasn’t developed certain communication skills and judgment yet, suddenly gripping a powerful vehicle for speech.

And that brings us around to Jeff Veillette. Veillette is a 15-year-old Canadian, judging from profiles on the Net, a Digg.com user, and self-insulting* online community member with what you might call typical 15-year-old rhetoric. Publicizing his actions on Digg, Veillette is daring Shell to sue him after setting up sue-me.info, a complete copy of Shell’s website, which would, if the terms were agreed to, rack up fees beyond counting.

At the top of the site, Veillette issues this statement:

_{Listen. Don’t fuck with us. We fight back, Suzanne. Try and sue me. I DARE you. Your entire site is framed here. Not one file (not two, but all) being processed is done by you. I framed it all, Suzanne. And you can’t do anything. Come on, Suzanne, go for it.}

NOTE: Heh! I actually wasn’t stealing anything. Just frames. But it proves a point. We don’t like you, Suzanne. Someone will try this, but at 15 years old I can’t afford it if you go insane. Sorry. Maybe next time.

And now, we sit back, shake our heads at both sides, and watch what happens next between a sharp-tongued, heavy-handed mother and the exceedingly arrogant bravado of a teenager. And we watch nervously.

*CORRECTION: Veillette informs us that the "self-insulting" post was a prank by a friend of his and not actually him.

Google’s Greed Over a Rollback

Michael Gray — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 22:52:26 +0000

Google recently announced they were updating the Adwords Quality Score, however it appears that there is a bug that raises the prices form any advertisers:

Google AdWords Quality Score Has Major Bug

Google AdWords Adds Quality Score Column & To Improved Quality Algorithm from Wednesday warned us of the new changes coming but apparently there is a bug that makes good performing ads prices spike through the roof.

GrowMy » Blog Archive » Major Google AdWords Bug With Quality Score Increases CPC Prices

There are dozens of reports of people noticing their CPC prices in Google AdWords jump through the roof. With the launch of a new AdWords quality score, a bug has been released and verified by Google to increase the bid…

SearchAnyway PPC – Online Search Marketing Guide for Webmasters: Costly Google AdWords Bug

It seems that Google AdWords’ new Quality Score feature has a bug, and that are driving cost-per-click prices on certain keywords through the roof.

Google Plans AdWords Algorithm Change; Expects Complaints | Marketing Pilgrim

It looks like Google’s pushed the button too early – and it could be the wrong button too. Lots of people are complaining that their Quality Score has gone crazy.

While Google is aware of the problem and is fixing it they refuse to rollback the code and are content to charge advertisers more until they fix it. So if you went to the store and the cashier said I know this item only costs you $1 but the register is broken and I have to charge you $2, but we’re working on it, would that be acceptable? C’mon Google do the right thing, do no evil rollback the code.

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About the Author

Michael Gray is SEO specialist and publishes a Search Engine Industry blog at www.Wolf-Howl.com. He has over 10 years experience in website development and internet marketing, helping both small and large companies increase their search engine visibility, traffic, and sales. Michael is a current member of Internet Marketing of New York ( IM-NY.org) and a guest speaker on Webmaster Radio. He is also an editor for the popular search engine new website Threadwatch.org.