Filters/Cybersitter and IRS/AltaVista

[Thomas Dowling]

> From: Maxine Feinberg <maxif at li.net>
> To: Multiple recipients of list <web4lib at library.berkeley.edu>
> Subject: Re: Filters/Cybersitter and IRS/AltaVista
> Date: Friday, April 25, 1997 9:32 PM
> 
> On April 25, 1997, Ronnie Morgan wrote:
> 
> >For me, the issue was never about the information that is available on
> >the net.  The issue is the pornography.  Porn is not information... 
> 
> Which brings us back to the previous discussion regarding 
> searches that produce unwitting results.
> 
> One of the issues we need to address, and, I believe, we have been 
> skirting, because it's thorny, is the insidious manipulation of search 
> engines by pornographers.  Instead of simply focusing on how to 
> parse search requests correctly, or theoretically musing about freedom 
> of information, we should be considering the very real prospect of 
> delivery of mis- or disinformation.  I agree that porn is not 
> information.
>   


It isn't just pornographers who misrepresent themselves to search engines. 
I've been privy to a conflict between two site in which: Site A creates a
content-rich page; Site B steals it, mounts it on their server, and submits
it to Alta Vista; Alta Vista indexes it, puts it above Site A's copy
(because it's newer); and then Site B removes it and puts their own version
at the URL Alta Vista points to.  All this to promote the local zoo.

Ain't it just typical that with the [U.S.] government continuing to push
for FCC-like control over content providers, it never seems to suggest it
should take FCC-like responsibility for punishing fraudulent advertising on
the net?

                    "I do have a cause, though: pornography.
                    I'm for it!"
                            --Tom Lehrer

Thomas Dowling
Ohio Library and Information Network
tdowling at ohiolink.edu