On 8/13/07, Michael Zimmer <michael.zimmer@nyu.edu> wrote:
I guess what I'm wondering is why there seems to be a presumption that just because I posted something on a website in 1999 I want it to always be accessible.
I don't think that anyone has posted an adequate response to this statement. If I am wrong and I have missed the response in this rather lengthy and fast-moving exchange, please accept my apologies! I am very wary of projecting my own knowledge - technical, legal, or otherwise - onto others and assuming they share that knowledge. But I fear that we might be guilty of that, consciously or unconsciously. Yes, *we* all know that anything placed online is, unless specifically protected (passwords, robots.txt, etc.), in the public and fair game for a number of uses and abuses. But the question that I would like answered is: How widespread is this awareness and how evenly is this awareness spread? Are we making an unwarranted assumption and in what cases is that assumption unwarranted? I've got some interesting anecdotes related to this topic but I'm sure there is some data out there to help answer these questions and I am hopeful that someone familiar with it can point us to it. I've worked with and encountered too many people who are ignorant of the inherently public and archived nature of the Internet to take that knowledge for granted in others. Kevin