Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Current Legal Issue

Author:Matt Hamer
Posted:9/2/1999; 8:11:14 AM
Topic:Who owns what parts of your webpage?
Msg #:10451 (In response to 10443)
Prev/Next:10450 / 10452

The Wall Street Journal published a relevant story on 08/31:

August 31, 1999 Ads by Mutual-Fund Firms Turn Sneaky on the Internet

The first paragraph:

When employees at Vanguard Group recently logged onto the Internet, they noticed something odd. While searching for sites mentioning the fund firm's name on Yahoo!, the search engine repeatedly churned out listings topped with banner advertising from rival Fidelity Investments.

(http://www.wsj.com This is a $$ Subscription site...I haven't seen the story on a public news site)

In this case, the target believes they are being harmed and are doing something about it.

So, if a service like Moreover were to accept money from a content provider for putting their stories "at the top", the other publishers would certainly be harmed. Of course, without resorting to the legal system, they could simply block the 'bot' from accessing their pages.

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