* * * * *

       “Avast ye swabbies! Copyright and Trademark violations abound!”

> **From:** Bob Apthorpe <XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX>
>  **To:** Sean Conner <[email protected]>
>  **Subject:** More run-ins with Nameprotect.com
>  **Date:** Sat, 11 Jan 2003 04:52:18 -0600
>
>
> …
>
> Early on, I found spiders from Cyveillance.com rummaging through a bunch of
> my dynamically-generated web pages (message boards, mailing list admin
> pages, etc.) Of course, there was no reverse DNS (Domain Name Service) on
> the spider and it was claiming to be some version of Internet Explorer, but
> hitting pages once a second and crawling every day on a dynamically-
> generated calendar is a tip-off you're not dealing with a meth-addled web
> surfer. Rainman, perhaps, but definitely not a real human.
>
> I don't have anything to hide but that's no justification for letting ill-
> mannered commercial robots rummage through the electronic equivalent of my
> sock drawer. I close the door when I'm in the bathroom. I wear pants.
> Modesty and privacy do not imply improper behavior. Besides, I have a few
> hundred megabytes of photos of improv comedy shows I've played in. I don't
> want my connection saturated because some anonymous robot was brainlessly
> and greedily slurping content that no human was ever going to enjoy, at
> least not in the way I intended. My network, my rules.
>

Email from “Bob Apthorpe”

Now I know blogger's readership figures are inflated. I checked and sure
enough, Cyveillance [1] came ripping through my site last month for 213 hits
(that I didn't notice—I think I'm now down to 75 or so real human hits per
day). Now, unlike NameProtect® [2]'s rather terse use of Mozilla/4.7 [3] as a
user-agent, Cyveillance [4] has gone the other extreme:

> Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0);Mozilla/4.0 (compatible;
> MSIE 5.05; Windows NT 5.0);Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.05; Windows NT
> 4.0);Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.05; Windows NT 3.51)
>

I guess they're running their robot under Windows 2000 (reported as Windows
NT (Not Today)5.0), Windows NT 4.0 and Windows NT 3.51 and want to cover all
the bases.

> Brand Protection Solution
>
> Cyveillance's Brand Protection Solution helps companies actively protect
> their brand equity by returning control over online brand integrity and
> use. By identifying and providing detailed intelligence on sites leveraging
> a company's brand for their own commercial purposes, Cyveillance enables
> companies to transform the Internet from a branding liability to a high-
> impact branding medium.
>
> With Cyveillance's Brand Protection Solution, clients are able to
> accomplish the following:
>
> * Create a more positive online branding experience for customers across
>   the Internet;
> * Build customer loyalty through consistent representation and
>   understanding of brand messages; and
> * Increase ROI (Return On Investment) and effectiveness of online branding
>   initiatives.
>
> Client Success Story
>
> Many clients have leveraged Cyveillance's Brand Protection Solution to
> prevent revenue leakage and recoup lost dollars. For example, a large
> insurance agency leveraged Cyveillance's Brand Protection Solution because
> the client wanted to stop traffic diversion from its corporate Web site by
> other sites leveraging this client's name, logo and slogan to drive
> business. Cyveillance identified several hundred cases of sites diverting
> potential buyers away from this client's site. These cases included several
> in which the client's own agents were using the brand to drive traffic from
> the corporate Web site and others in which sites were using the
> recognizable name and logo in meta tags, URL (Uniform Resource Locators)s
> and titles.
>
> With this knowledge, the client could immediately take action against the
> misrepresented sites, prevent further revenue leakage and strengthen brand
> equity.
>

“Cyveillance Brand Management [5]”

Beautiful the way they phrase things, isn't it?

I would think that effective use of Google [6] would be just as effective and
possibly cheaper than hiring an outfit like NameProtect® [7] or Cyveillance
[8], but that's just me.

It would be nice if these sites would follow the Robots Exclusion [9]
protocol but nooooooooooooo!

My only consolation is that they find their way towards xxx.lanl.gov [10],
because, you know, the name says it all, and besides, they just
<SARCASM>loooooove robots [11]</SARCASM> coming through their site.

[1] http://cyveillance.com/
[2] http://www.nameprotect.com/
[3] gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2003/01/05.1
[4] http://cyveillance.com/
[5] http://www.cyveillance.com/web/solutions/brand_protection.htm
[6] http://www.google.com/
[7] http://www.nameprotect.com/
[8] http://cyveillance.com/
[9] http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots.html
[10] http://xxx.lanl.gov/
[11] http://xxx.lanl.gov/RobotsBeware.html

Email author at [email protected]