RE: https://tldr.nettime.org/@tante/116605858023186072
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@inthehands @joe @ShadSterling Detecting them would be way harder if they served different HTML and layout structures each time, maybe with some of them copied from popular CMSes/forum software/wiki software/any software for pre-generated pages.
@algernon perhaps you'd want to implement this.
@raulmatias @inthehands @joe @ShadSterling I have nothing to implement, iocaine can already do that. The template can be changed, and the random seed doesn't need to be stable, so it can serve different junk for every request.
But! I don't think that (= serving different garbage for every request) is a good idea. That makes it almost trivial to detect that iocaine is at work: send two requests, compare. Wildly different? That's gonna be garbage => engage countermeasures.
Serving the same garbage makes automatic detection a tiny bit harder.
But, in case of Google, that still doesn't matter, as long as they identify themselves.
Personally, I send an
x-robots-taghttp header that opts it out of all kinds of search and indexing, from crawlers that respect it (Google currently does). I still serve googlebot garbage, but that bot visits me like a handful of times a day. -
@raulmatias @inthehands @joe @ShadSterling I have nothing to implement, iocaine can already do that. The template can be changed, and the random seed doesn't need to be stable, so it can serve different junk for every request.
But! I don't think that (= serving different garbage for every request) is a good idea. That makes it almost trivial to detect that iocaine is at work: send two requests, compare. Wildly different? That's gonna be garbage => engage countermeasures.
Serving the same garbage makes automatic detection a tiny bit harder.
But, in case of Google, that still doesn't matter, as long as they identify themselves.
Personally, I send an
x-robots-taghttp header that opts it out of all kinds of search and indexing, from crawlers that respect it (Google currently does). I still serve googlebot garbage, but that bot visits me like a handful of times a day.@algernon @inthehands @joe @ShadSterling Are there any pre-defined templates available except the standard one?
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@inthehands It's important to note that search indexing is considered "transformative" and thus fair use *because* it does not supplant the market for the original content. That goes out the window when the product functions to capture traffic that would otherwise go to the cites. They are acting with impunity, but existing copyright law addresses this if courts find it to be not transformative.
@jedbrown @inthehands I can only go by German/EU law, hand here it is not transformative (becaise duh!). The reproduction is the key thing here: if you reproduce another's work outside of private use, you are violating Urheberrecht (creator's rights): priviledges enshrined in law to the creator of a work (some of which can be licensed out). One of these is distributing reproductions.
E.g. any time you upload an image to SM, their ToS say you grant them license to reproduce (amonh others). -
@algernon @inthehands @joe @ShadSterling Are there any pre-defined templates available except the standard one?
@raulmatias @inthehands @joe @ShadSterling There's the built-in one, and another - slightly more complex - in Nam-Shub of Enki.
There will be more templates coming in the next few months (and new scripts!).
But a lot of things are doable today, if someone takes the time and creates a suitable template.
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Going with meta noindex for now. My thinking is that this actively tells Google to yank already-crawled content from their index, whereas they might take a robots.txt entry to mean “do not update, but keep showing last fetched.”
instead of no-index ―because this would affect all search engines, not just Google― isn’t there a way to target Google specifically in robots.txt?
there should be a list of all the major techbros crawlers ―Google, Microslop, Facebook, Amazon, X, etc.
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instead of no-index ―because this would affect all search engines, not just Google― isn’t there a way to target Google specifically in robots.txt?
there should be a list of all the major techbros crawlers ―Google, Microslop, Facebook, Amazon, X, etc.
@blogdiva
I believe that my various name=“___” values specifically target Google.Based on what I’ve read, blocking them in robots.txt will only stop them from •updating• their scrape, whereas noindex means “do not use.” (I have long blocked their LLM-specific bots in robots.txt.)
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@blogdiva
I believe that my various name=“___” values specifically target Google.Based on what I’ve read, blocking them in robots.txt will only stop them from •updating• their scrape, whereas noindex means “do not use.” (I have long blocked their LLM-specific bots in robots.txt.)
@inthehands TIL thanks
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@inthehands TIL thanks
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@inthehands As I said just a while ago: Every big tech press event these last few years have felt like "Announcing our exciting plans for oligarchs to strip-mine the entire world and immiserate all of humanity! Get on board, and also death to the unbelievers!"
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@markwyner @inthehands
There is a point where their search becomes bad enough that being on Google search has less and less payoff@AccordionBruce @markwyner @inthehands That happened about five years ago.
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Defeatism is a form of surrender. Cynicism is surrender. Despair is surrender. Nihilism is surrender.
Our job is to •care• and to •keep caring• and to •keep doing and keep building• and to •endure• longer than them.
@inthehands My site is tiny, but I had to make sure and add that into my own. I don't care if Google never happens to come across it, the idea of them using my site to train their LLM is sickening.
I also have to say, your site is absolutely gorgeous. -
@inthehands
How long until Maps will only give directions in real-time, no destination foreknowledge allowed.@sollat @inthehands They do that already by recalculating and finding the most efficient route regardless of what you tell it to do. Google knows best. Pay no attention to the sign that says "turn back now. there has never been a bridge across this 1500 foot deep canyon."
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RE: https://tldr.nettime.org/@tante/116605858023186072
Google Search rests on a social contract: their bots can crawl our sites, they can index our sites, and they can show excerpts of our sites because
and •only because•
they send people to our sites. •Our• sites, our words, with our design, with our links, with our context and our aesthetics, shared the way we want to share them.
Google is announcing — unambiguously and with great fanfare — that they are now fully breaking that already-ragged contract. We should reciprocate.
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@inthehands honestly why would anyone still care about SEO when Google doesn't forward people to your website.
Might as well block the googlebot in your robots.txt tbh
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OK, a •lot• of replies need this reponse:
Yes, of •course• they will start ignoring robots.txt etc as soon as they think it hurts their business. Of course.
It is important to •force that fight•, rather than just capitulating in advance.
@inthehands in forcing that fight, google is going to find that the rest of the internet already has sophisticated tools for this fight. My anubis config should already be blocking google.
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@markwyner @inthehands
There is a point where their search becomes bad enough that being on Google search has less and less payoff -
Quick strategy discussion, for those who understand Google indexing and SEO:
If I want to yank a web site out of Google’s now-fully-extractive search, should I (1) disallow googlebot in robots.txt or (2) add `<meta name="googlebot" content="noindex">` to all the page headers?
The goal here is not just to remove my contributions to the commons from Google’s results, but to •make Google aware• that sites are pulling consent. What will best do that?
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@inthehands completely unhinged and fact-free question from the back of the crowd here:
How long until they no longer give a fuck about and declare robots.txt an obsolete technology? -
Quick strategy discussion, for those who understand Google indexing and SEO:
If I want to yank a web site out of Google’s now-fully-extractive search, should I (1) disallow googlebot in robots.txt or (2) add `<meta name="googlebot" content="noindex">` to all the page headers?
The goal here is not just to remove my contributions to the commons from Google’s results, but to •make Google aware• that sites are pulling consent. What will best do that?
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@inthehands for the last ~ 18 months or so before I shut my websites down last year I just served never-ending gzip streams of null bytes to all of Google’s IP space (and anyone else identifying themselves as a crawler more generally, among a few other criteria). It didn’t take very long for Google to drop the index listing.
In particular OpenAI’s dumbass scraper just kept coming back every day for gigabytes and gigabytes of “robots.txt” and other URLs, getting a 10:1 bandwidth expansion out of gzip was quite satisfying
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RE: https://tldr.nettime.org/@tante/116605858023186072
Google Search rests on a social contract: their bots can crawl our sites, they can index our sites, and they can show excerpts of our sites because
and •only because•
they send people to our sites. •Our• sites, our words, with our design, with our links, with our context and our aesthetics, shared the way we want to share them.
Google is announcing — unambiguously and with great fanfare — that they are now fully breaking that already-ragged contract. We should reciprocate.
1/2
@inthehands
We need to get together a federated search index. -
RE: https://tldr.nettime.org/@tante/116605858023186072
Google Search rests on a social contract: their bots can crawl our sites, they can index our sites, and they can show excerpts of our sites because
and •only because•
they send people to our sites. •Our• sites, our words, with our design, with our links, with our context and our aesthetics, shared the way we want to share them.
Google is announcing — unambiguously and with great fanfare — that they are now fully breaking that already-ragged contract. We should reciprocate.
1/2
@inthehands Google: how do I degoogle?
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@inthehands Google: how do I degoogle?
