[WEB4LIB] Metasearch Engines and Commercial Portals

[Danny Sullivan]

> I am curious whether commercial portals such as Yahoo and Google can
> legally restrict client software (graphic or otherwise) from searching
> their sites and harvesting results.

Very difficult to say. The recent Bidder's Edge-eBay case suggests that they
would win on a "trespassing" basis. Some articles on that and related issues
are here:

http://searchenginewatch.com/resources/legal.html#Crawling%20And%20Linking

cheers,
danny

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Danny Sullivan
Editor, SearchEngineWatch.com
http://searchenginewatch.com