Subject: RE: [hackers-il] Google.com ordered the relevant WWW::Search to b e removed from CPAN

From: Arik Baratz <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2002 20:07:21 +0200

I believe that the section in Google's TOS should not be taken literally.

Google make half their money from people who set up commercial links. These
links are metered by the number of times they were requested. If the idiot
who plays googlewhacking with a script (which is IMHO not only violates
Google's TOS but also unfair googlewhacking) has his way, all those
companies who put commercial links will have their eyeball-counters
increased without an actual person viewing the link.

That's why I believe they do not agree to the perl module as well - if you
use the perl module to write a search engine and you don't show those
commercial links to the actual end user you are reducing Google's income
from companies.

Myself - I run webwasher, and remove banner-ads and pop-ups, which hurts the
sites I visit because they don't get my eyeball counted towards their hit
count as far as the advertiser is concerned. While I don't mind seeing the
banner ad now and then, I do it because of the pop-up ad, which IMHO is
illegitimate internet practice. Not even talking about the flash ads that
make a nasty sound when you hover above them with your mouse by mistake
(KAMA? HAMISHIM MILION!). In the old days of the internet there was an
argument about the <BLINK> tag. It was annoying because it was blinking a
line of text...

-- Arik

-----Original Message-----
From: Nadav Har'El [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Monday, March 11, 2002 7:18 PM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [hackers-il] Google.com ordered the relevant WWW::Search to be
removed from CPAN

On Mon, Mar 11, 2002, Shlomi Fish wrote about "[hackers-il] Google.com
ordered the relevant WWW::Search to be removed from CPAN":
> Use Perl reports that Google ordered the WWW::Search::Google module to be
> removed from CPAN, because it violated their terms of use:

Google's TOS says that you may not use an automated program to query their
site. One may argue if this makes any sense (aren't proxies and browsers
also automatic programs? is it ok to use wget?) on whether the users or
module writers are at blaim, and wether this applies to anything else (e.g.,
my sendsms, my (unpublished) stock quote sending script, etc.).

But actually, the real reason why Google became worried is probably one that
appears in the site you mention, and for some reason is marked "funny". It
is not funny it all - it is very likely to be the real reason Google got
upset:
  "This may be related to Googlewhacking [googlewhack.com].
   Disclaimer: the term "Googlewhack" was invented by my employer, Gary
Stock
   [unblinking.com] (his home page is where it all started). At one point he
   was getting hundreds of emails a day, people offering up their clever
   googlewhacks, arguing about scoring and legitimacy, describing
programming
   hacks, etc. The scariest was somebody who said he was coding up a script
   to walk through /usr/share/dict/words (or whatever) and submit all the
word
   pairs to Google ..."

Obviously, a person who wants to do this doesn't really need a clever Perl
module: he can just write one himself in a couple of hours, or use wget, or
whatever. So I'm not sure at all why Google though that asking this guy to
recall his Perl module will put a stop to the automated googlewhacking...

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |        Monday, Mar 11 2002, 28 Adar
5762
[email-masked]
|-----------------------------------------
Phone: +972-53-245868, ICQ 13349191 |What's the difference between roast
beef
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |and pea soup? Anyone can roast beef.

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