If a bot has a meaningful effect on server load (i.e. page requests), it falls under the category of malicious software, which is highly illegal.
________________________________ From: Ray Saintonge <sainto...@telus.net> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org> Sent: Saturday, June 20, 2009 2:35:52 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Info/Law blog: Using Wikisource as an Alternative Open Access Repository for Legal Scholarship Brian wrote: > That is against the law. It violates Google's ToS. > > I'm mostly complaining that Google is being Very Evil. There is nothing we > can do about it except complain to them. Which I don't know how to do - they > apparently believe that the plain text versions of their books are akin to > their intellectual property and are unwilling to give them away. > > How is violating Google's ToS against the law? Sites put all sorts of meaningless garbage into these documents, and users mostly ignore them. Of course Google's evil; it's about time that people noticed that. They use their deep pockets as a way to bully other sites ... with a smile. Fortunately the U.S. does not have database protection laws like the E.U. Ideally, every PD item they host should also be hosted on an alternative site, but that's a massive undertaking, ... and they know it. Nothing requires them to be nice to the competition, such as by making it easy to copy their material. Ec _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l