Re: BK MetaData License Problem?

Jes Sorensen
2002-10-06T17:39:32Z

>>>>> "Alan" == Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> writes:

Alan> On Sun, 2002-10-06 at 18:17, Jes Sorensen wrote:
>> This whole metadata discussion leads me to another question which
>> has been bothering me about BK's 'Open' Logging and hosted trees
>> for a while. What is happening to all the infomation that BitMover
>> is (or could gather) from people accessing the Open Logging site as
>> well as the hosted repositories? There could be a lot of marketing
>> value in this if BM decided to abuse it. Ie. some marketing manager
>> could decide to run advertisement campaigns listing names of known
>> individuals using the software.

Alan> They can do that anyway. The metadata is public. Nobody even
Alan> needs to bother Larry about it, any more than folks who trawl it
Alan> for spam email targets do

Whether or not it's legal to post it is something else, that doesn't
make it right. Besides, in many countries you can't put someone's name
up on a billboard unless they have agreed to it, or if they are
considered a 'public person' or something to that extend. Of course
with the totally broken privacy system in the US, and Canada for that
safe ;-(, I am sure you can publish whatever you want.

I have no issue with a company like BM or anyone else using anonymous
statistics for advertisement, but I'd be royally pissed if I had my
name on someone's leaflet without having given my written permission
first. Hence the suggestion for a privacy clause in the license.

Cheers,
Jes