Cache 22 - Has Ancestry.com Gone too Far?
The new Internet Biographical Collection at Ancestry.com has raised a storm of furor this week. This database, available to subscribers only, is basically a collection of cached content - copies of Web pages taken from a variety of sites across the Internet that contain biographical information of interest.
I personally have no problems with Ancestry.com offering a search feature that indexes these Web sites. It offers a useful search service, although I would feel better about it if they didn't include this among their subscription offerings as the content isn't their own, and search engines traditionally do not charge for their service.
The biggest problem I see here, however, is that these pages are being cached. A cache is basically a copy of a Web site, taken at a particular point in time.
Google has been taken to court over their practice of caching Web sites, but the ruling was in Google's favor. Judge Robert C. Jones of the Nevada District Court said, "“When a user requests a web page contained in the Google cache by clicking on a 'Cached' link, it is the user, not Google, who creates and downloads a copy of the cached web page. Google is passive in this process. Without the user’s request, the copy would not be created and sent to the user, and the alleged infringement at issue in this case would not occur."
The Ancestry.com database takes things even further, however, serving up the cached pages as the first option and offering a small link to the "live Web site." There is no way to get to the link for the live page without first viewing the cached page. On the actual record page for each search result, the cached link is identified as "cached," but it is still the only option open if you want to view the content - there is no link to the live Web page until after you view the cached page. And from the search results where you are given the option only to "view Web page" you are taken directly to the cached page, with no notice that the page is indeed cached. This is where I feel that this database has stepped over the line, possibly into copyright infringement. Ancestry.com is serving up copies of copyrighted work and, to make matters worse, selling this as one of their subscription databases. Because the pages are cached, they are also depriving the Web site and/or content owner of traffic and potential income.
How do you feel about this issue? Is the new database a useful service, a violation of copyright, or an unethical step in the wrong direction for Ancestry.com? Click on "comments" below and share your thoughts.
Comments
Can you link us to an example of this?
The idea behind it is good but (a) it should be free. Ancestry is NOT building the web sites and (b) it should be called LIVE since it isn’t. User should be told how to get to live site such as click site link to see latest site info. But this should NOT be a subscriber offering. If they want to hook people in, then provide extra benefit to the subscriber — maybe a link to something in the Subscriber database. I have a genealogy site and I figure anything I put there is going to get used. I hope they give me credit but since I put it where anyone can get to it — it’s not something I can demand.
Of course lately Ancestry has posted titles such as Directory of Scottish Settlers in North America, 1625-1825. Vol. III. But don’t bother to try looking if you have Scottish ancesters who came to North America during that time. This is limited to the World Deluxe Membership account only. Why? Because the “places” designation has only Scotland in it — 3 times! How wrong is that!
Only subscribers can access this database so I can’t provide an example link for you to see unless you are a subscriber. If you do subscribe to Ancestry.com, then click on Internet Biographical Collection above.
Just wanted to update my post as well. Since I blogged earlier this morning (it’s now 5 hours later), Ancestry.com has already rectified the things I felt were wrong:
1) The record page now includes a link to the cached page as well as to the live page. I’d prefer that the live page be the first link, but this is definitely an improvement.
2) The “view web page” link from the search results which previously took you to a cached page without warning has been removed.
Just so everyone knows, I don’t personally have any Web sites or pages involved in this that I know of. My blog is just commentary on something I felt crossed the line a bit.
Please see http://cowhampshire.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2007/8/28/3190057.html
or email me at janicebr@earthlink.net for additional screenshots.
Janice Brown
As someone with extensive FREE genealogy web site experience, plus someone whose blog (Cow Hampshire) content has been “stolen” by Ancestry.come via their online “Biographical Database,” I can succinctly state that they have violated the copyright to my blog articles at Cow Hampshire. There is no excuse for this. I have contacted their copyright attorney and to date have not heard back. How would you feel if your book or web site was being “sold” to their customers?
Janice Brown
Blog: Cow Hampshire
Well, I have mixed emotions about this. I have frequently found information in online searches that was gone when I went to look for it. My undocumented sense is that it usually is because the person who put it up let it wither through inattention - bit rot in other words.
I do believe that ancestry should honor robots.txt restrictions and takedown requests from content owners.
It looks like Ancestry has made these pages free now.
Janice,
I’ve been there and I know how it feels. I’m right there with you on this! It looks like Ancestry is listening too, because they have already moved the database into their Free Records section, as well as added links to the live Web page right under the one to the cached Web page. Am I saying they were in the right with this? No. But they are at least listening.
Some tech questions: What is the form that their spider or bot takes? What is the block of IP addresses that belong to Ancestry.com? I can alter my site to refuse to even allow access from their servers. If your site is hosted by blogspot, typepad, wordpress.com or other free weblog hosting service, blocking IP addresses probably isn’t an option.
Well, facts cannot be copyrighted; but original content and Web pages themselves can be. I have some biographical essays on my site that I do not even allow cousins to put on their sites.
Today’s format on Ancestry is a lot better than yesterday’s, but I still feel that it is unethical. If Ancestry wants to provide a search engine that produces links, they should create one, rather than describing search results as being part of a collection and suggesting that the results are owned by or otherwise affiliated with Ancestry.com.
If Ancestry has moved this to their free pages, I think this will solve most of the legit compaints. Clearly, however, a very serious PR mistake that has cost them a lot of good will. And, unless they have fixxed this too, I think it is downright tacky to suggest a citation that includes Ancestry. I’ve been pretty neutral about Ancestry/TMG, but this whole mess rates a black mark in my opinion.
I’m afraid that Ancestry.com has not satisfied me. They still include my blog in their “database” without giving my blog URL a proper citation (sorry a “live link” to my blog alone doesn’t cut it), and as far as the free part, you must be fooling yourselves if you think it is free right now.
You must register in order to get the “free access,” and although one friend says he gave a fake email address to log in, how many will really think of that? So now Ancestry.com has your email address (if its your real one)–do you realize how valuable that is to them from a marketing perspective.
I won’t be satisfied until they 1) remove the database from the paid section of Ancestry, 2) include each blog or web site’s REAL URL and TITLE/NAME as part of the database search results, 3) make the database REALLY FREE (no registration, log-in or subscription needed).
Janice at Blog: Cow Hampshire
I’m with Janice on this one. The URL to our websites and/or blogs should be included. The way it is now it still appears that this is Ancestry content - and it isn’t, not by a longshot!!
And now I’ve jumped into the fray. Complete with parody makeover of portions of ancestry.com’s home page.
I’ve blogged about this today, too…with the perspective that there may be images on the blogs or websites’ home pages that have terms of use that require that they are not copied or resized for any reason without the creator’s permission. Thumbnails of websites that appear on Ancestry may be in violation of this, even if Ancestry does not profit.
Surely when a person puts their family history on line they do so to help people find ancestors or links to ancestors, not to help money grubbing companies to make a living from it. Does this mean, as it will to me, that Genealogists will not publish anymore,if so, then Ancestry should be brought into line with and show the help and generosity shown by the average researcher.
Wal
Found tech info that’s necessary to make the bot go away. More research is necessary. But the updated info is at the bottom of my post.
Ancestry in its zeal to monopolize the genealogy market stole every site it came across it appears as many or more sites are non genealogy and many have XXX content, or content not suitable for families.
Look at this site.
http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&rank=1&gsfn=&gsln=&_82000000=&rg_81000001__date=&rs_81000001__date=0&gskw=boob&prox=1&db=webbiographies&ti=0&ti.si=0&gss=angs-d&fh=41&recid=173722&recoff=414+415
The pages were not just cached Ancestry changed the source code and added their script. My personal sites look like they belong to Ancestry and my pages can be saved to their shoe box.
Drucilla Evans Glover
The last comment links to their site where you have to submit your name and e-mail.
well they seem to have visited my website, but no “hot link” to it
only a “text” link to it on a subsequent sub-page … and then access to their own databases “/
do a search for HEDGESPETH click on the first of the two hits provided
enjoy !
Ken -
hdpth-DNA
I doubt that anyone remembers in the early years of Ancestry.com how we handled indexing other web sites. We had a feature called GenPageFinder that basically crawled hundreds of thousands of genealogy sites on the web, and we included the search results in our global search results. Basically, the view of the company’s founding team was that if we didn’t have the answer on our web site, we should send our visitors to any other site that did. We never did any caching and never even contemplated doing it.
But later, as the founders lost control of the company, a new philosophy was embraced–a walled garden philosophy–that basically tried to capture all visitors and keep them on the Ancestry sites. Sending any visitor to another web site was anathema. GenPageFinder, sadly, was removed, and along with it a chance to signficantly boost the traffic to other great genealogy web sites.
We also used to highlight a great web site in our Ancestry Weekly News every week gave it a “Family History Favorite” award. Juliana Smith, our editor, would choose (without any input from the “business side” of the company) great sites that she could profile and compliment. Many of these sites got tens of thousands of visitors because she liked them and linked to them in her newsletter. (Some even had their servers go down with all the traffic from our Ancestry Weekly News readers. But they still appreciated the recognition.)
I left the company in February 2002 (we launched the first Ancestry.com site in June 1996) and have been troubled ever since watching the company make decisions that are not good for the genealogical community. One of the worst was taking away free access from the 4,500 family history centers in April of this year. The walled garden philosophy may be fading, but a winner-take-all philosophy still seems to be the prevailing attitude at TGN.
I am optimistic, however, that new competition combined with fierce community feedback, as with this caching issue, will cause TGN to respond to make decisions that are good for customers and the genealogy community as a whole.
Paul Allen
CEO, World Vital Records
I am disgusted by what ANCESTRY has done.
I feel like someone has broken into my home and stolen my possessions.
I feel violated by Ancestry.
While looking for this disappearing Internet Biographical link thru their pages, wherever they now hidden itnow, with the title of UNKNOWN database…
I found, GUESS WHAT?….Public Member Photos…family photos that people have dumbly uploaded to their Ancestry tree and now, are for sale.
If you don’t believe me, look thru the list yourselves under all databases list. it was on pg 2.
I thought the original photographer held copyrights to photos for 50-70 yrs??
I can’t copy one at Wally World, they will throw it in the trash before they will let me even have one for prersonal use or to share with a famly member.
I know what a camera hidden in the bathroom will do, but what will this company do next??
I also put this on My Family.com
I also think Ancestry has gone too far. I think they should have the right to collect data on their own (with consent) and charge a subscription price for it. If you want to subscribe then subscribe, BUT, I don’t think they should take over all the free sights and more or less make you think you have found a treasure then *whammo* you are on ancestry.com. There is very little choice anymore. You find a sight or a web page and you eventually wind up on Ancestry.com before you get to the information you are looking for, then you have to subscribe before you can get to it. Sure….you are offered a free trial, but you still have to give out your credit card #, plus to unsubscribe …you have to call them to unsubscribe. I personally don’t like my information being used for some companies profit when I will gladly give it to another genealogist for free.
Carrol Campbell
I think the bottom line of the difference between google & ancestry should have a bearing on the legality of each company’s display of a cached page.
You click on the link to a cached page at google and you get the one page that contains a match to your search. Above the page is a very prominent header clearly stating this is a cached page (you can’t very well miss it). Click on any link within that cached page and you are taken off of google to the original site.
Ancestry on the other hand - doesn’t post a notice you are viewing a cached page other than the banner (nothing like google’s statement) and when you click on any link on the cached page, the next page that is brought up is still within Ancestry’s frames. The viewer is not taken to the actual site. And, therein lies the problem.
I view google as a great way to bring visitors to my sites. I view Ancestry as a thief.
I tried to locate this “database” at Ancestry.com but apparently they have dispensed with it already. Sure would have liked to see if any of my stuff was there!
As underhanded as Ancestry has been about this site, I bet they rename and rework it and put it back out there…
Genealogy.com is out for your money.
That’s all they want. They bought up all the major competition for their (at the time) inferior software, then put the companies they bought out of business.
Now they are offering up inferior data for a higher price. I dislike genealogy.com more than I dislike Microsoft. That’s a lot.
Ancestry is violating the copyright law even if the material is free. They wouldn’t be in violation were they to give compensation to copyright owners — but they would have to first get their permission before selling the material — a costly procedure. Better to follow Google’s model.
Many databases have been provided to Ancestry by my family and friends for FREE. After subscribing for many years, The fee’s have increased beyond many of our means. How sad.
I can’t afford the subscription price at Ancestry.com. I was glad when I was able to view the public trees, except for the non-living people. I put my tree on there, hoping that other family members would see it and contact me. You could also at least contact the person of the private tree, which now you can’t. That was fine, but after awhile, they now charge for that priviledge. What I didn’t understand was, if the info can’t be seen by non-members, then the photos souldn’t be shown either. It is too bad that everything comes down to the money. I realize that it cost to keep these sites going, but if we put our trees on there and mark them as public, then the public should at least see them free. They charge for it, but I am not compensated for my time, or photos.
Ancestry.com has definitely taken it too far! I signed up on their site; thankfully some of the info that I left was erroneous. In all fairness, I do need to assume some of the responsibility. I should know better by now than to trust even the sites that are suppose to be on the up and up. I know now that Ancestry is not one of them. After doing the signup, I was promptly notified that my information was to be used for a public database. I am just glad that I didn’t go so far as to actually give them the $$ so it would be even easier for me to become a 2 time victim of Identity theft. It is just not necessary to ask for such personal information as an address and a telephone number to register on a website. If Ancestry wants to keep this practice going they should not be in business. By requesting and using this personal info and using it as a public database, it holds a dire risk for the parties that are listed in that database. For those of you that think this a bit extreme, obviously you haven’t been victimized by identity theft to where your credit is shot and you are pursued and harassed by creditors for purchases that you didn’t make. Or not being able to buy health insurance because the parties that stole your identity left you with an erroneous health record of aids and cancer. Folks, This serious stuff and should be stopped!!!