[SIGCIS-Members] Google's poor stewardship of the USENET archive

jcortada University of Minnesota jcortada at umn.edu
Thu Feb 26 11:44:55 PST 2015


I strongly disagree with you, Al.  That is definitely NOT the way to deal
with this problem.  First, you have no idea why there is a problem, what
Google's intentions are, based on the article you are circulating.  Second,
Google executives have been supportive of the work and institutions
relevant to the preservation of computing's history.  I have personal,
first hand knowledge of that.  So why irritate the firm that is on your
side?

If you are concerned, first we would need to validate what the article
says, second we should query Google quietly about the matter to see if in
fact they are evil to us, or, as I suspect is more the case, other issues
have impinged on access that we are not aware of.  Google decisions makers
saying grace over the site might not even be aware of the discomfort they
are creating for historians and therefore might be willing to help us out.
Perhaps a couple of representatives of SHOT or SIGCIS should reach out to
Google in a calm, collected manner?

On Thu, Feb 26, 2015 at 1:31 PM, Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> wrote:

> Time to complain LOUDLY to Google about this!
>
> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/google-a-search-company-
> has-made-its-internet-archive-impossible-to-search
>
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-- 
James W. Cortada
Senior Research Fellow
Charles Babbage Institute
University of Minnesota
jcortada at umn.edu
608-274-6382
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