merlyn@stonehenge.com (Randal L. Schwartz) writes: >>>>>> "Robin" == Robin Norwood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > >>> DO NOT ATTEMPT TO DO THIS > > Robin> Really? If I understood the OP correctly, all he wants to do is > 'screen > Robin> scrape' the (public) board in question. In other words, nothing > Robin> significantly different from what Google does when it indexes. I don't > Robin> really see an ethical (as opposed to legal - IANAL!) problem with that. > Robin> Of course, I would first email the admin for permission, and make > *sure* > Robin> that such a bot is 'well behaved' - such as adding calls to sleep > inside > Robin> some of those loops. After he gets the data, he could do something > Robin> unethical with it - like republish it. But just getting the data > Robin> doesn't seem wrong to me. > > It's one thing to be google, and index all the pages for public use. > > It's entirely another to do it for your own personal gain (knowledge > or commerce, doesn't matter). > > If you can't see the difference, you need to retune your ethics.
But Google does use the data in indexes for personal gain...it derives significant revenue from the advertising done on it's site. Without the data, no-one would visit Google, and thus no ad revenues. I don't know what the OP plans to do with the data, so whatever *that* is might be unethical. But there are lots of ethical uses for the data. Maybe he's trying to write a Google-killin' search engine. Maybe he's doing research. Maybe he's paying for his internet connection by the minute, and wants to read the posts offline. As long as he doesn't do anything he couldn't do with regular browser, I don't see the problem. -RN -- Robin Norwood Red Hat, Inc. "The Sage does nothing, yet nothing remains undone." -Lao Tzu, Te Tao Ching -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <http://learn.perl.org/> <http://learn.perl.org/first-response>
