• 7fb2adfb45bafcc01c80@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    arrow-down
    65
    ·
    10 hours ago

    I just sent a DMCA takedown last week to remove my site. They’ve claimed to follow meta tags and robots.txt since 1998, but no, they had over 1,000,000 of my pages going back that far. They even had the robots.txt configured for them archived from 1998.

    I’m tired of people linking to archived versions of things that I worked hard to create. Sites like Wikipedia were archiving urls and then linking to the archive, effectively removing branding and blocking user engagement.

    Not to mention that I’m losing advertising revenue if someone views the site in an archive. I have fewer problems with archiving if the original site is gone, but to mirror and republish active content with no supported way to prevent it short of legal action is ridiculous. Not to mention that I lose control over what’s done with that content – are they going to let Google train AI on it with their new partnership?

    I’m not a fan. They could easily allow people to block archiving, but they choose not to. They offer a way to circumvent artist or owner control, and I’m surprised that they still exist.

    So… That’s what I think is wrong with them.

    From a security perspective it’s terrible that they were breached. But it is kind of ironic – maybe they can think of it as an archive of their passwords or something.

    • Red Army Dog Cooper@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      2 hours ago

      how do you expect an archive to happen if they are not allowed to archive while it is still up. How are you suposed to track changed or see how the world has shifted. This is a very narrow and in my opinion selfish way to view the world

      • 7fb2adfb45bafcc01c80@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 hour ago

        how do you expect an archive to happen if they are not allowed to archive while it is still up.

        I don’t want them publishing their archive while it’s up. If they archive but don’t republish while the site exists then there’s less damage.

        I support the concept of archiving and screenshotting. I have my own linkwarden server set up and I use it all the time.

        But I don’t republish anything that I archive because that dilutes the value of the original creator.

    • jqubed@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      3 hours ago

      About the only thing I can agree with you on here is I don’t like when people on Wikipedia archive a link and then list that as the primary source in the reference instead of the original link. Wikipedia (at least in English) has a proper method to follow for citations with links and the archived version should only become the primary if the original source is dead or has changed and no longer covers the reference.

      They should also honor a DMCA takedown and robots.txt, but at least with the DMCA I’m sure there’s a backlog. Personally I’ve always appreciated the archive’s existence, though, and would think their impact is small enough that it’s better to have them than block them.

    • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      34
      ·
      8 hours ago

      Not to mention that I’m losing advertising revenue if someone views the site in an archive.

      No one is using Internet Archive to bypass ads. Anyone who would think of doing that already has ad blockers on.

        • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          3 hours ago

          I completely understood. No one is going to IA as their first stop. They’re only going there if they want to see a history change or if the original site is gone.

            • ikidd@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              27 minutes ago

              Because if you’re referencing something specific, why would you take the chance that someone changes that page? Are you going to monitor that from then on and make sure it’s still correct/relevant? No, you take what is effectively a screenshot and link to that.

              You aren’t really thinking about this from any standpoint except your advertising revenue.

    • Adanisi@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      26
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      8 hours ago

      Wah wah wah, my stuff’s been preserved and I dont like it.

      Not to mention that I lose control over what’s done with that content – are they going to let Google train AI on it with their new partnership?

      Lmao you think Google needs to go through Archive to scrape your site? Delusional.

      Not to mention that I’m losing advertising revenue if someone views the site in an archive.

      The mechanisms used to serve ads over the internet nowadays are nasty in a privacy sense, and a psychological manipulation sense. And you want people to be affected by them just to line your pockets? Are you also opposed to ad blockers by any chance?

      I have fewer problems with archiving if the original site is gone, but to mirror and republish active content with no supported way to prevent it short of legal action is ridiculous.

      And how do you suggest a site which has been wiped off the face of the internet gets archived? Maybe we need to invest in a time machine for the Internet Archive?

      Sites like Wikipedia were archiving urls and then linking to the archive, effectively removing branding and blocking user engagement.

      What do you mean by “engagement”, exactly? Clicking on ads?

      • 7fb2adfb45bafcc01c80@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        edit-2
        3 hours ago

        What do you mean by “engagement”, exactly? Clicking on ads?

        In SEO terms user engagement refers to how people interact with the website. Do they click on another link? Does a new blog posting interest them?

        Lmao you think Google needs to go through Archive to scrape your site? Delusional.

        Any activiity from Google is easier to track and I have a record if who downloaded content if it’s coming from my servers.

        The mechanisms used to serve ads over the internet nowadays are nasty in a privacy sense, and a psychological manipulation sense. And you want people to be affected by them just to line your pockets? Are you also opposed to ad blockers by any chance?

        I agree that many sites use advertising in a different way. I use it in the older internet sense – someone contacts me to sponsor a page or portion of the site, and that page gets a single banner, created in-house, with no tracking. I’ve been using the internet for 36 years. I’m well aware of many uses that I view as unethical, and I take great pains not to replicate them on my own site.

        I disapprove of ad blockers. I approve of things that block tracking.

        As far as “lining my own pockets” goes, I want to recoup my hosting costs. I spend hours researching for each article/showcase, make the content free to view, and then I’m expected to pay to share it with anyone who’s interested? I have a day job. This is my hobby, but it’s also my blood, sweat, and tears.

        And how do you suggest a site which has been wiped off the face of the internet gets archived? Maybe we need to invest in a time machine for the Internet Archive?

        archive.org could archive the content and only publish it if the page has been dark for a certain amount of time.

        • Adanisi@lemmy.zip
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          edit-2
          3 hours ago

          archive.org could archive the content and only publish it if the page has been dark for a certain amount of time.

          It’s user-driven. Nothing would get archived in this case. And what if the content changes but the page remains up? What then? Fairly sure this is why Wikipedia uses archives.

          I agree that many sites use advertising in a different way. I use it in the older internet sense – someone contacts me to sponsor a page or portion of the site, and that page gets a single banner, created in-house, with no tracking. I’ve been using the internet for 36 years. I’m well aware of many uses that I view as unethical, and I take great pains not to replicate them on my own site.

          Pretty sure mainstream ad blockers won’t block a custom in-house banner. And if it has no tracking, then it doesn’t matter whether it’s on Archive or not, you’re getting paid the same, no?

          Pr

          • 7fb2adfb45bafcc01c80@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            3 hours ago

            It’s user-driven. Nothing would get archived in this case. And what if the content changes but the page remains up? What then? Fairly sure this is why Wikipedia uses archives.

            That’s a good point.

            Pretty sure mainstream ad blockers won’t block a custom in-house banner. And if it has no tracking, then it doesn’t matter whether it’s on Archive or not, you’re getting paid the same, no?

            Some of them do block those kinds of ads – I’ve tried it out with a few. If it’s at archive.org I lose the ability to report back to the sponsor that their ad was viewed ‘n’ times (unless, ironically, if I put a tracker in). It also means that if sponsorship changes, the main drivers of traffic like Wikipedia may not see that. It makes getting new sponsors more difficult because they want something timely for seasonal ads. Imagine sponsoring a page, but Wikipedia only links to the archived one. Your ad for gardening tools isn’t reflected by one of the larger drivers of traffic until December, and nobody wants to buy gardening tools in December.

            Yes, I could submit pages to archive.org as sponsorship changes if this model continues.

            It was a much bigger deal when we used Google ads a decade ago, but we stopped in early 2018 because tracking was getting out of hand.

            If I was submitting pages myself I’d be all for it because I could control when it happened. But there have times when I’ve edited a page and totally screwed it up, and archive.org just happened to grab it at that moment when the formatting was all weird or the wrong picture was loaded. I usually fix the page and forget about it until I see it on archive.org later.

            I asked for pages like that to be removed, but archive.org was unresponsive until I used a DMCA takedown notice.

        • StopJoiningWars@discuss.online
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          3 hours ago

          SEO killed the internet. You’re literally part of the reason why people go look for alternatives to viewing your website, no one wants ads.

          • 7fb2adfb45bafcc01c80@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            3 hours ago

            I don’t think you know what SEO is. I think you know what bad SEO is.

            Anyhow, Wikipedia is always free to link somewhere else if they can find better content.