Thanks. Yes, I saw that he made it opt in.

Its a more appealing model than holding a brand hostage which does destroy the goodwill.

I’m glad to see that Seth has moved to the opt-in model and has abandoned the opt-out threat model since it seemed to contradict the good will, partner oriented, business philosophy he has been touting so far.

This is an essential part of his business model. He is exercising editorial control in so I don’t see how you can hide behind safe harbour.

Not only is he editing, he is doing so in an unethical manner, ie on a cash for comment basis and responsible for every editorial comment as a result. Message: ‘our ‘journalism’ depends on whether the person the subject of the negative (possibly defamatory content) pays us $400 per month’.

We will let users think that this is content rather than advertising.

Whoever made the comment that it shouldn’t be assessed on a legal basis, I do agree that it is bad for society.

& ralph m
“There are plenty of websites that are “scraping” content. This includes sites that rehash tweets, and others like answers.com, and even Google. That’s right! Google is just s a giant Internet scraper that rehashes content. And we let it, because it’s GodBut Seth Godin comes along with a fabulous idea and all anyone can do is hate on him for “scraping content.” The real reason why it’s an issue is because he’s charging $400/month for it. If Seth were really smart, he wouldn’t have publicized that so much. “

But people’s reaction is a real contradiction in my eyes…yes…. Google are actually publishing it and deciding where it ranks, and have direct control over the algorithm but as we have seen Google seem to be immune on the basis that this is a ‘mechanical’ action devoid of any human intervention. There is constant human intervention at many levels. But that precedent doesn’t seem to matter at this point in time, and maybe one day it will be overturned.

However what Seth Godin is doing is being very selective.

More importantly, whilst Google might be just as selective, they won’t say I won’t publish things by you because you won’t pay be money. They might actually do it, but aren’t so brazen about it.

“So give Godin a break, and stop harassing him for being something that everyone else is. He’s entitled to make money off his ideas if they’re good. I think maybe some of the haters are just a little jealous because they didn’t think of it first”

Traditional journalism does it too and may not be being as honest about it. But they are responsible for what they re-publish. The Journalist knows they are an editor and can’t do it. Seth is doing which what some journalists do, publish all kinds of sensationalist c*** which he can’t necessarily prove and doesn’t necessarily believe is true. Every company that he slanders will have to decide whether they want to pay him off or sue him.

I don’t see what is so novel. Journalists have done this as long as journalism has existed. They tell everyone their editiorial section is separate from their journalism section but both answer to the CEO. With respect to the typical US newspaper, the owner doesn’t necessarily interfere with the editorial section, but in Australia Murdoch is more inclined to do so. The American owners don’t do it for ideological reasons but I am sure everyone is driven by profit. The editors know not to say nasty things about the big advertisers.

It doesn’t need to be money, but journalists always get something out of being nice to people, and have to balance how nice they are to people versus telling ‘the truth’, and it is always a compromise.

What happens offline should be no different to the online world.

I agree with your analysis that this is RipOffReport revisited.

The whole business model is to induce visitors to read the negative material which is elevated to a high rank.

I don’t think there is anything in users making a conscious choice to do so breaking any chain of causation. The courts focus on the business model. This is republication/dissemination of false and defamatory material, whether or not it is scraped is irrelevant. The business model is set up so as to profit from this dissemination. In a lot of the litigation against RipOffReport the defendants didn’t even front and judgement was entered in default.

It seems ironic that the Ed Magedson behind XCentric Ventures which operated RipOffReport probably needed a reputation management service to deal with his chequered past.

There are all kinds of allegations flying around that reputation management companies have sent death threats to such services which, if true, brings the whole reputation management industry into disrepute.

Thanks for the reference to the Gutnik decision. I applaud the courts decision to uphold mass publishing laws as they currently exist. Having been involved in IS for over 26 years I tend to view most of the digital realm as just another delivery system for the same kinds of information.

It seems the laws are rather blurry. Perhaps more than most of us would hope for :). It never dawned on me that a users choice to link to a publisher/aggregator could potentially be viewed as a break in the chain of causation. Again thanks.