FW: about:global in Netscape

[Alicia Abramson]

I agree that we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater.  There is a
difference at looking at these statistics anonymously and tracing them to
individual patrons.  Two analogies I can think of that are accepted in the
library world are OPAC log analysis and the creation of circulation
statistics.  We do these things to learn more about what our patrons are
doing, what their information needs are.  In this sense, I think that the
collection and analysis of *anonymous* WWW browser transaction logs is
legitimate. 

Alicia

At 05:17 PM 3/12/97 -0800, perez at opac.state.or.us wrote:

>Hmmm...WHO is this anonymous "patron" of we're so concerned with
>compromising?  Excuse, but isn't this a teapot tempest, as far as
>confidentiality of public terminals goes? Okay, so Big Brother or
>Fundamentalist Frank can sit down and be able to find out that some
>unknown patron used the www.xxx.edu site 6 days ago. So what? Anderson
>above uses the metaphor of circulation records.  But this is a list of
>place *somebody* looked at! Not a patron list with which sites they have
>each checked....
>
>[Well, I do suppose an FBI agent COULD sit down right after the perp
>leaves, and quickly check out the global file. I'll have to remember to
>do my bomb-making research at a non-public terminal.]
>
>But generally, isn't the global file sort of like saying that a
>vigilante will be able to tell from the date-due stamp that "someone"
>checked out Das Kapital last month?
>
>Cheers,
>- ernest
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------------
>Ernest Perez, Ph.D.     |   There ain't no answer.
>Oregon State Library    |   There ain't going to be any answer.
>perez at opac.state.or.us  |   There never has been an answer.
>503-378-4243, xt 257    |   That's the answer.
>                        |        -Gertrude Stein
>
>
 
                             *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- 
                             | Alicia Abramson        |
                             * Head, Library Systems *
                             | American University   |
                             * (202) 885-3228         *
                             | aabrams at american.edu   |
                             *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-