FC: Mirror of "sucks" site criticizing Texas mall, from Wayback archive

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

Previous message:
http://www.politechbot.com/p-02904.html

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Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2001 22:30:20 -0800
To: declan () well com
From: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart () pobox com>
Subject: Re: FC: Update on Texas mall assailing critical website with 
similar name
Cc: politech () politechbot com, Hank () WebFeats com, kieran () esperi demon co uk

Wayback has
http://web.archive.org/web/20011205065342/http://www.taubmansucks.com/
dated 12/05/01, though it doesn't seem to have the followon pages,
like precisely how the law firm harassing him sucks.

A few interesting issues happen when you have a Wayback Machine:
- Web pages don't automatically disappear just because a site goes down
        or a judge in some country orders it taken down.
- On the other hand, that doesn't mean you can *depend* on archives;
        the web crawlers don't catch every page that appears, every time,
        and if the page is gone by the time the crawler gets to it, too bad.
        (Unfortunately, this especially means that cracked&scribbled pages
        don't usually get archived in modified versions, and controversial 
pages
        that are taken down quickly may also get missed.)
- At some point, the legal system will catch up with the concept of caches 
and archives.
        That's probably not entirely good - there are judges who still 
don't get
        what a link means, and issue bans on linking to sites,
        so there may be occasional orders against archive sites who
        aren't directly a party to court actions.
        Will erasing archives be treated as destroying evidence?
        Will archivists be allowed to block their copies without erasing them?
- There are other cases where sites are destroyed, like the recent attempts
        to close critical public-information sites like
        hazardous-chemical warning sites with the excuse of preventing 
terrorists
        from accessing them.  The bureaucrats who do this will unfortunately
        be more consistent about doing this than random-lawsuit judges.
        Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, and back where I used to live 
in New Jersey,
        there are places with all sorts of dangerous materials that could be
        a serious public emergency if something happens -
        and not only does the public have the right to know,
        but firefighters, medical people, and other emergency workers need 
to know.
- If a site gets shut down, it's probably worthwhile for someone
        related to or aware of the action to do a quick spider on the archives
        to make sure the material is preserved.

                Bill Stewart




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