AboutUs.Org
Not sure I like this - a Wiki based on the idea of trawling the net for “about” pages on websites and reproducing them.
Why, I don’t know (other than advertising revenue).
As content on this site is considered copyright, I’ve removed the text they’ve posted about my domains, and replaced with a message stating that my content is mine.
I’d suggest others do the same. Especially as it’s come to my attention that they are showing some postal addresses and phone numbers for domain owners. (I’d guess from Whois records) If you own a website (or several) I suggest you check your page and remove any personal information that they’ve lifted…
I’m not linking to them, as I don’t want to push their google rank any further, however I will be visiting every so often to ensure my copyrighted information hasn’t reappeared.
More info: http://ajaydsouza.com/archives/2006/08/25/aboutusorg-is-it-ethical/
Oh, if I can figure out their IP or their bot’s connection string, I will block it at the server. If anyone already has this, please get in touch.
Update:
Their website is on 66.249.16.207 - so block that IP to start with by adding this line to your htaccess file (on apache) - have yet to establish if the bot is on the same IP, but it’s somewhere to start
deny from 66.249.16.207
I’d recommend that if your domain isn’t already on there, create a record for it, then clear the text. If you set up a user on the site, you can create a “watchlist” of domains you want to keep an eye on for changes. Use this feature to protect yourself further. You shouldn’t have to - but if you do check back from time to time, you can keep an eye on what they’re posting about you.
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Thanks Tom, some great advice.
Every record on aboutus.org contains a page history, so even if you remove your content that it’s lifted about/from your site, then it still there, only a couple of clicks away from the “current” version.
Here’s an evil idea:
What we need as a spam plugin that submits every spam URL (you know, all those advertising male enhancements and pharmaceuticals) to his indexer and watch it - after all he’s trying to index every domain in the world, let’s help him find them!
Apparently the bot runs from 66.249.16.207 too - so I’m now going to block access to this site from anywhere under 66.249.16.*.
ALso, the folks at Aboutus.org have now posted info on how to prevent their bot reading your site (but it’s not easy to find) - but it’s far too little, far too late, the damage is done once your copyright material has been ripped off.
How to block the bot: http://www.aboutus.org/AboutUsBot
AboutUs have also created a seperate page for people to post concerns (he must have gotten fed up with all the negative chat on his “talk” page) - http://www.aboutus.org/AboutUs:Concerns
[...] AboutUs.Org starting to cave in Published August 28th, 2006 in Rants Tags: aboutus.org. Well, AboutUs are clearly listening to concerns (link, link, link, link, link) as they now have a mechanism in place to purge the histories, however it’s not easy to find from the front page of the site. He’s also improved the bot, to limit the amount of information retrieved, and provide a sensible credit. (see the “concerns” page again) - although to get a deletion you have to somehow prove you’re the site owner. Shame he doesn’t require this proof for creation or edits of records. [...]