I visited IETF datatracker for the Web Bot Auth working group. The timestamps for most of the draft documents were 26 June 2026 i.e. yesterday. Then I glanced at the most recent meeting minutes https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/minutes-interim-2026-webbotauth-02-202604131700/
AI/LLM bots that scrape and gulp training data don't seem under serious threat (i.e. being cut off from the "open web" given this:
The first item on the agenda was whether alleviating volumetric abuse by AI bots. The WG vote was 7 in favor and 2 against. It could have been worse, but... sheesh
This isn't a problem that's exclusive to the US!
Yes, I realize that many of the big LLM/AI companies are legally domiciled in the US, but they hire people from all over the world to work for them. Also, we keep hearing about how China is going to surpass us in AI, so presumably there is Chinese AI/LLM website scraping too. (not that I've heard of it being a problem for any Western Hemisphere or UK website owners.)
More relevant: The AI/LLM behemoths scrape websites regardless of where the website owners live. It isn't a form of US mercantilism. Maybe there's preference for English language sites. If so, I suspect it is temporary, because Sam Altman and Anthropic et al are going to want to sell their chatbots and tokens to everyone.
It is incredibly disingenuous for Mike and the EFF to say that pillaging of entire websites' content is a form of "open access"!!! Not to mention the examples given here in the replies, of the automated AI/LLM company crawlers that are so aggressive they interfere with even keeping one's site online.
Being good at deceptive marketing while selling weight-loss and erectile dysfunction drugs ONLINE has been a thing since the dawn of email spam.
to which you replied:
No. Known-quack remedies have a much longer history than the dawn of stored-programme computers. A con artist in Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn...
Mike is right. First, selling things ONLINE (deceptively or not) has no history prior to "the dawn of stored-program computers". Selling things deceptively by snail mail and other means, i.e. NOT online, DOES have a long history, and predates Mark Twain. Secondly, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel, i.e. a work of fiction, not fact. As such, its content is irrelevant as a riposte to Mike. Per The University of Georgia Press "Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: The Original Text Edition":
Perennially listed among the classics of American literature, Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) broke new ground by allowing a teenage boy to narrate his own story. The son of a cruel town drunkard, Huck Finn vividly describes his friendship with Tom Sawyer, his resolve to run away from his abusive father, and his decision to join a runaway slave named Jim in a search for freedom. Jim and Huck’s days and nights on a raft floating down the Mississippi River... the bizarre characters they encounter... are memorably sketched. Though comical in places, ultimately the book warns about the price of immoral social conformity.
I am not being pedantic. Rather, I'm emphasizing that non-fiction incidents of quackery have endangered human health with deliberate sale of inert or harmful substances--mislabelled as effective--for centuries. Health scam perpetrators operated during and prior to the existence of the Internet and email, be they charlatans, door-to-door snake oil salesmen, itinerants of the Middle Ages etc. Sam Altman should feel ashamed for commending MEDVi, as should the NYT, (formerly?) known as our paper of record.
I have a low opinion of generative AI to-date. Maybe I'm wrong. As Mike wrote, the MEDVi fraud isn't AI's fault. He's correct, but I'm tired of such widespread incredulity.
Yes, you're right about Mike typically taking NYT seriously, as long as the content supports his political biases, even if said content is misleading, is mostly made up, or otherwise deeply flawed. And yes, you're correct about NYT reporters, editors etc. not being smart, not being diligent, and often distorting news stories to suit their agendas.
Although it is unlikely to make much difference, I think some fulsome praise is acceptable when Mike does something right, i.e. call out the NYT for positively spinning an AI slop spam company that the FDA's Office of Compliance had already publicly notified of drug safety law violations.
I'm not excited about Waymo self-driving vehicles either, but I don't know of any lawsuit against Google/Alphabet due to injuries (at least 3 of them) with lying and deception like Tesla did here!
Tesla oversold the self-driving feature of their passenger vehicles.
Who says she killed 0 people with her lies?!
The State of Arizona approved her Theranos blood test facilities inside every location of a big pharmacy chain here. They were wildly inaccurate. I know because my doctor sent me there, and the results showed my cholesterol up 120 points so she prescribed medicine for it. I didn't want to take it, asked her to re-order at a normal lab that didn't do finger pricks like Theranos. Results came back: cholesterol and LDL were normal, same as they usually were.
I wouldn't have died from taking the unnecessary meds. If I were old and fragile and got meds for wrong blood tests, it could have been very bad.
I was revisiting this article, and revisited your link. That was a great post in January 2022, and is playing out IRL now, 11 months later. Thanks for sharing.
*I love the look of that infrequently dot org's guy's website design too~
Remember that Wikipedia has all sorts of institutional assets, about $400 million as of 2021. I cast no aspersions on Wikipedia for the thoroughness of their fund raising campaigns and outreach efforts, btw. I actively edit Wikipedia. Yes, there are female editors!
In contrast, for most of its existence, Archive.org aka the Wayback Machine was entirely funded by its creator, Brewster Kahle. He primarily used the funds he received from the sales of his internet search-and-retrieval and web traffic analysis companies during the mid-1990s. Even with some recent external support by non-profits, there was never any concerted effort to raise funds to support the project until ~2020. This was the situation despite the Internet Archive's unique role in preserving:
all sorts of books, pamphlets, speeches, images, press releases, and even the occasional video or film, from the early 20th century through the present. Many of these documents are no longer available via the Internet-at-large but only through university libraries, government archives, foundations, or private collections.
Remember, content that is:
--today's consumer or popular culture (K-Pop?)
--1st amendment protected "hate speech"
--near-ubiquitous recounting of current events (e.g. Russia's invasion of Ukraine)
--widely taught history of post-U.S. Civil War Reconstruction massacres of freedmen
may one day soon be "memory holed" or accessible only by overcoming considerable obstacles, be they financial or otherwise, e.g. allowing view at physical location only!
Do consider donating to archive.org. Even $1 is an accepted amount, right from the site's landing page.
Now I keep seeing random religious ads, including one that literally was just a tweet praising God...and another for Scientology.
Religious ads and ads praising G-d aren't examples of "hate running rampant". There have been plenty of full page ads in the New York Times praising religion or making a call to action. Alleging that Twitter accepts ads for Scientology, a known pernicious cult, requires some evidence, maybe a screen shot. Is this a change in Twitter policy from the former ownership? The rest of your article is well-sourced. This should be too.
For what it's worth, see here for time-series level of hate speech on Twitter. Without knowing underlying assumptions (e.g. what constitutes hate speech under Musk?) it's of limited use.
Timothy Geithner was Secretary of the Treasury during the 2008 financial crisis. I would find it VERY amusing if he were to write an article shilling for NFTs on TechDirt!!!
I think you meant Timothy Geigner?
PA Observer: I am curious. Are you referring to Cathy Gellis as the "poster", and if so, why is this the most ridiculous post on TD in many years? I looked at your comment history, which seems well-informed. (I looked at my own, realized I haven't commented since 2014!)
I'm not a legal pretender, merely a statistician at a bank. My understanding was that the Sedition Act of 1917 or so was a bridge too far, and was mostly replaced by the Espionage Act (conviction of such being punishable by death but only in very specific and extreme circumstances).
KKK and Illinois neo-Nazis have the right to assemble and speak freely, without prosecution or harassment by the US government. The Jewish residents of Skokie, IL were not happy about the neo-Nazi parade. President Carter wasn't thrilled either, but he was on the side of the ACLU and First Amendment. The neo-Nazis got a permit, held their march in Chicago without harming or being harmed, then departed never to return. That's how the First Amendment applies to protected speech, yes? Child pornography and incitement to violence/rioting are the only exceptions, yes? The law hasn't changed although willful misinterpretation of it has since 1973, e.g. the ACLU would never file an amicus briefs for neo-Nazis now.
I'd suggest that most people, when referencing the phrase, "one can't shout 'Fire!' in a crowded theatre", are appealing to a colloquial expression that has no actual bearing on the letter of the law as it exists today and for the past hundred years.
The "correction" does not keep getting ignored. Rather, it is upheld, and is very much the point of protected speech under the First Amendment. For example, I was listening to Chris Cuomo (the CNN guy) exchange heated words about the harm caused by hate speech. Chris Cuomo is an attorney. When pressed, he readily acknowledged that he considers hate speech to be immoral, but certainly NOT illegal.
No, it doesn't work like that. Two or more people can be convicted of, and punished for conspiracy IF AND ONLY IF at least one of them actually does commit an illegal act. See 18 U.S. Code § 371 (Conspiracy to commit offense against or defraud the United States). If the conspirators talk about doing something illegal, but none of them DO anything illegal, there is no crime and free speech is not restricted.
Adobe is probably tracking reading speed, bookmarks etc. just like AMZN did. I used Adobe Digital Editions, the free e-reader using EPUB (?) format. It was good, but not better than any others. This sounds like the best option to me:
buy the printed version that's usually cheaper and more pleasant to read at home.
There isn't anything wrong with "stockpiling" cereal. As long as you eat it, it is a discounted bulk purchase, and nothing to feel guilty over. Well, if there aren't food shortages! As for renting power tools, great idea! I think Home Depot and small non-chain hardware stores used to offer that.
Most of the sharing economy so far seems to enrich a tiny number of middle men who own the distribution platform, with inconsistent or questionable benefit to users/customers. I do NOT see Google in that role though.
The Obama administration has revealed so few details about the negotiations, even to members of Congress and their staffs, that it is impossible to fully analyze the Pacific partnership. Negotiators have argued that it?s impossible to conduct trade talks in public because opponents to the deal would try to derail them.
That isn't how U.S. government works. There are always opponents to legislation by some members of Congress. Hiding the details from them, and the public, is wrong, and very ominous.
ottonomy, I visited your website from your profile here, after reading that URL to the MoveOn news.
Wow! You are so kind and introspective, based on what I read. You seem like a very good person, emotionally and ethically. Keep up the great work, and don't doubt yourself! * No one here is allowed to poke fun at me for this, okay?
Speaking of LA education, I think they may have seen the light, scales falling from eyes. (Sorry, that was for dramatic effect. I am not a Christian, but love their way with words sometimes). I say that with respect to the highly STATIST Common Core, which Gov. Jindal is finally turning away from.
IETF Web Bot Auth WG not exactly restrictive
I visited IETF datatracker for the Web Bot Auth working group. The timestamps for most of the draft documents were 26 June 2026 i.e. yesterday. Then I glanced at the most recent meeting minutes https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/minutes-interim-2026-webbotauth-02-202604131700/ AI/LLM bots that scrape and gulp training data don't seem under serious threat (i.e. being cut off from the "open web" given this: The first item on the agenda was whether alleviating volumetric abuse by AI bots. The WG vote was 7 in favor and 2 against. It could have been worse, but... sheesh
Re: Re: Re: Blame the victim
This isn't a problem that's exclusive to the US! Yes, I realize that many of the big LLM/AI companies are legally domiciled in the US, but they hire people from all over the world to work for them. Also, we keep hearing about how China is going to surpass us in AI, so presumably there is Chinese AI/LLM website scraping too. (not that I've heard of it being a problem for any Western Hemisphere or UK website owners.) More relevant: The AI/LLM behemoths scrape websites regardless of where the website owners live. It isn't a form of US mercantilism. Maybe there's preference for English language sites. If so, I suspect it is temporary, because Sam Altman and Anthropic et al are going to want to sell their chatbots and tokens to everyone. It is incredibly disingenuous for Mike and the EFF to say that pillaging of entire websites' content is a form of "open access"!!! Not to mention the examples given here in the replies, of the automated AI/LLM company crawlers that are so aggressive they interfere with even keeping one's site online.
Mike Masnick, deceptive marketing, and Mark Twain
Mike Masnick wrote:
to which you replied: Mike is right. First, selling things ONLINE (deceptively or not) has no history prior to "the dawn of stored-program computers". Selling things deceptively by snail mail and other means, i.e. NOT online, DOES have a long history, and predates Mark Twain. Secondly, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel, i.e. a work of fiction, not fact. As such, its content is irrelevant as a riposte to Mike. Per The University of Georgia Press "Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: The Original Text Edition": I am not being pedantic. Rather, I'm emphasizing that non-fiction incidents of quackery have endangered human health with deliberate sale of inert or harmful substances--mislabelled as effective--for centuries. Health scam perpetrators operated during and prior to the existence of the Internet and email, be they charlatans, door-to-door snake oil salesmen, itinerants of the Middle Ages etc. Sam Altman should feel ashamed for commending MEDVi, as should the NYT, (formerly?) known as our paper of record. I have a low opinion of generative AI to-date. Maybe I'm wrong. As Mike wrote, the MEDVi fraud isn't AI's fault. He's correct, but I'm tired of such widespread incredulity.Mike's Gell-Mann amnesia
Yes, you're right about Mike typically taking NYT seriously, as long as the content supports his political biases, even if said content is misleading, is mostly made up, or otherwise deeply flawed. And yes, you're correct about NYT reporters, editors etc. not being smart, not being diligent, and often distorting news stories to suit their agendas. Although it is unlikely to make much difference, I think some fulsome praise is acceptable when Mike does something right, i.e. call out the NYT for positively spinning an AI slop spam company that the FDA's Office of Compliance had already publicly notified of drug safety law violations.
No sources
No, there is no reputable source, not even one, describing NATO as the abbreviation of "North American Treaty Organization". Even Yahoo! News did an incredulous fact check and thoughtfully included some nice screenshots: Did The New York Times publish a headline saying 'A North American Treaty Organization Without America?'
NYT ran it as a large HEADLINE in their international edition.Uneasy about current self-driving vehicles but Tesla is...
I'm not excited about Waymo self-driving vehicles either, but I don't know of any lawsuit against Google/Alphabet due to injuries (at least 3 of them) with lying and deception like Tesla did here! Tesla oversold the self-driving feature of their passenger vehicles.
Elizabeth Holmes lies
Who says she killed 0 people with her lies?! The State of Arizona approved her Theranos blood test facilities inside every location of a big pharmacy chain here. They were wildly inaccurate. I know because my doctor sent me there, and the results showed my cholesterol up 120 points so she prescribed medicine for it. I didn't want to take it, asked her to re-order at a normal lab that didn't do finger pricks like Theranos. Results came back: cholesterol and LDL were normal, same as they usually were. I wouldn't have died from taking the unnecessary meds. If I were old and fragile and got meds for wrong blood tests, it could have been very bad.
web3 washed up
I was revisiting this article, and revisited your link. That was a great post in January 2022, and is playing out IRL now, 11 months later. Thanks for sharing. *I love the look of that infrequently dot org's guy's website design too~
Internet Archive
Remember that Wikipedia has all sorts of institutional assets, about $400 million as of 2021. I cast no aspersions on Wikipedia for the thoroughness of their fund raising campaigns and outreach efforts, btw. I actively edit Wikipedia. Yes, there are female editors! In contrast, for most of its existence, Archive.org aka the Wayback Machine was entirely funded by its creator, Brewster Kahle. He primarily used the funds he received from the sales of his internet search-and-retrieval and web traffic analysis companies during the mid-1990s. Even with some recent external support by non-profits, there was never any concerted effort to raise funds to support the project until ~2020. This was the situation despite the Internet Archive's unique role in preserving:
- what would otherwise be Internet ephemera and impermanence since 1996 as described by this Anonymous Coward's comment;
- all sorts of books, pamphlets, speeches, images, press releases, and even the occasional video or film, from the early 20th century through the present. Many of these documents are no longer available via the Internet-at-large but only through university libraries, government archives, foundations, or private collections.
Remember, content that is: --today's consumer or popular culture (K-Pop?) --1st amendment protected "hate speech" --near-ubiquitous recounting of current events (e.g. Russia's invasion of Ukraine) --widely taught history of post-U.S. Civil War Reconstruction massacres of freedmen may one day soon be "memory holed" or accessible only by overcoming considerable obstacles, be they financial or otherwise, e.g. allowing view at physical location only! Do consider donating to archive.org. Even $1 is an accepted amount, right from the site's landing page.Scientology advertisements?
Mike, seriously?
Religious ads and ads praising G-d aren't examples of "hate running rampant". There have been plenty of full page ads in the New York Times praising religion or making a call to action. Alleging that Twitter accepts ads for Scientology, a known pernicious cult, requires some evidence, maybe a screen shot. Is this a change in Twitter policy from the former ownership? The rest of your article is well-sourced. This should be too. For what it's worth, see here for time-series level of hate speech on Twitter. Without knowing underlying assumptions (e.g. what constitutes hate speech under Musk?) it's of limited use.Re: US Treasury Secretary writing for TechDirt
Timothy Geithner was Secretary of the Treasury during the 2008 financial crisis. I would find it VERY amusing if he were to write an article shilling for NFTs on TechDirt!!! I think you meant Timothy Geigner?
Green Bay Packers stock like GOOGL
Neither has voting rights but shares of Google GOOGL can be bought and sold and investors can make a profit if the price goes up.
Also, I'm not convinced that NFTs or DAO is an easier way to offer decentralized, widely distributed ownership than an actual common stock offering.
Re: LOLOL
PA Observer: I am curious. Are you referring to Cathy Gellis as the "poster", and if so, why is this the most ridiculous post on TD in many years? I looked at your comment history, which seems well-informed. (I looked at my own, realized I haven't commented since 2014!) I'm not a legal pretender, merely a statistician at a bank. My understanding was that the Sedition Act of 1917 or so was a bridge too far, and was mostly replaced by the Espionage Act (conviction of such being punishable by death but only in very specific and extreme circumstances). KKK and Illinois neo-Nazis have the right to assemble and speak freely, without prosecution or harassment by the US government. The Jewish residents of Skokie, IL were not happy about the neo-Nazi parade. President Carter wasn't thrilled either, but he was on the side of the ACLU and First Amendment. The neo-Nazis got a permit, held their march in Chicago without harming or being harmed, then departed never to return. That's how the First Amendment applies to protected speech, yes? Child pornography and incitement to violence/rioting are the only exceptions, yes? The law hasn't changed although willful misinterpretation of it has since 1973, e.g. the ACLU would never file an amicus briefs for neo-Nazis now.
Re: This argument tends to remind me
I'd suggest that most people, when referencing the phrase, "one can't shout 'Fire!' in a crowded theatre", are appealing to a colloquial expression that has no actual bearing on the letter of the law as it exists today and for the past hundred years. The "correction" does not keep getting ignored. Rather, it is upheld, and is very much the point of protected speech under the First Amendment. For example, I was listening to Chris Cuomo (the CNN guy) exchange heated words about the harm caused by hate speech. Chris Cuomo is an attorney. When pressed, he readily acknowledged that he considers hate speech to be immoral, but certainly NOT illegal.
Re: What about conspiracy?
No, it doesn't work like that. Two or more people can be convicted of, and punished for conspiracy IF AND ONLY IF at least one of them actually does commit an illegal act. See 18 U.S. Code § 371 (Conspiracy to commit offense against or defraud the United States). If the conspirators talk about doing something illegal, but none of them DO anything illegal, there is no crime and free speech is not restricted.
Re: Re: Two lessons here
Adobe is probably tracking reading speed, bookmarks etc. just like AMZN did. I used Adobe Digital Editions, the free e-reader using EPUB (?) format. It was good, but not better than any others. This sounds like the best option to me:
I don't like messing with DRM.Re: We need to get into a borrowing society...We do?
There isn't anything wrong with "stockpiling" cereal. As long as you eat it, it is a discounted bulk purchase, and nothing to feel guilty over. Well, if there aren't food shortages! As for renting power tools, great idea! I think Home Depot and small non-chain hardware stores used to offer that.
Most of the sharing economy so far seems to enrich a tiny number of middle men who own the distribution platform, with inconsistent or questionable benefit to users/customers. I do NOT see Google in that role though.
Secret negotiations
This is really awful:
That isn't how U.S. government works. There are always opponents to legislation by some members of Congress. Hiding the details from them, and the public, is wrong, and very ominous.Thank you etc for ottonomy
ottonomy,
I visited your website from your profile here, after reading that URL to the MoveOn news.
Wow! You are so kind and introspective, based on what I read. You seem like a very good person, emotionally and ethically. Keep up the great work, and don't doubt yourself!
* No one here is allowed to poke fun at me for this, okay?
Re: Re: MoveOn for Louisiana GOP
Speaking of LA education, I think they may have seen the light, scales falling from eyes. (Sorry, that was for dramatic effect. I am not a Christian, but love their way with words sometimes).
I say that with respect to the highly STATIST Common Core, which Gov. Jindal is finally turning away from.