Re: robots.txt , authors of robots , webmasters ....

Carlos Baquero (cbm@di.uminho.pt)
Thu, 18 Jan 1996 22:37:34 +0100 (GMT+0100)


On Thu, 18 Jan 1996, Robert Raisch, The Internet Company wrote:

> Do any others feel as I do that control over use of my
> information is my responsibility and mine alone? That the
> assumption should be not to index a site that has not explicitly
> given permission to be indexed? (I don't expect much agreement
> here, to be honest. But I thought I would ask.)
>

I have some simpathy for your argument but I cannot agree.

Suppose that the mass media needed explicit autorizations to publish
info or photographs of public activities. There would'nt be to much
info for the public, I guess. And that would be very bad ...

I think that there is a legal notion of public and private places.
It would be invasive to publish a photo of myself inside my house and
taken through the window, but once I get into the street I am
aware that a photo of myne can appear in a newspaper.

I do think that unprotected places published in the web are public places
by default.

Carlos Baquero
Distributed Systems Fax +351 (53) 612954
University of Minho, Portugal Voice +351 (53) 604475
cbm@di.uminho.pt http://shiva.di.uminho.pt/~cbm