Is this normal?

Michael Kazin mkazin at gmail.com
Thu Jun 13 08:40:45 EDT 2013


I think your premise is mistaken.  A link does not gain private status
because it doesn't appear on a website.   The contents of this mailing list
are a public discussion forum,  including all types of information- URLs,
email addresses, and grandma's secret oatmeal cookie recipe.   It is not
email,  and thus doesn't qualify for any such protection.

Well, actually it does between your mail client and the mailing list
server,  but not after it's posted.   At that stage it's no different from
Google Groups or Slashdot: irreversibly public, and fair game for crawling
as long as the mailing list authorizes indexing.  Whether or not a crawler
follows a URL should depend on your host's robot.txt file,  as addressed
above.   But don't confuse that for privacy either - robots is an opt in
system for both parties.

Personally I'm not convinced there's anything going on beyond this and am
getting tired of the common trend of ubiquitous kneejerk allegations that
something sinister must be afoot without any supporting evidence.  Any
suggestion that LUG communication is being specifically and intentionally
monitored by Google or others would be laughable.  So can we please not go
there?

Michael
On Jun 13, 2013 7:24 AM, "Jerry Feldman" <gaf at blu.org> wrote:

> On 06/13/2013 07:18 AM, Bill Ricker wrote:
> > if you Jerry or someone previewed the site with Chrome, Google knows.
> > there are hints that links in email are captured.
> > links in mailing list archives are definitely captured.
> >
> > robots.txt is your only hope. (requires ownership of whole website.)
> I did not preview the site. Been busy.
>
> --
> Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org>
> Boston Linux and Unix
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