ACAP responds to Google

Questioned on its position on Automated Content Access Protocol (ACAP) at the MediaGuardian.co.uk Changing Media Summit, yesterday, Wednesday, 12 March 2008, Google spokesman Rob Jonas said that “the general view within the company is that the robots.txt provides everything most publishers need to do.” The ACAP response is that “publishers know what they need, and they need ACAP”.

ACAP chairman Gavin O'Reilly – also chairman of the World Association of Newspapers – said, “It's rather strange for Google to be telling publishers what they should think about robots.txt, when publishers worldwide – across all sectors – have already and clearly told Google that they fundamentally disagree. If Google's reason for not (apparently) supporting ACAP is built on its own commercial self-interest, then it should say so, and not glibly throw mistruths about.

“Publishers have specifically requested that Google respect the rights of content creators – which is a fairly uncontroversial request.”

Continued O'Reilly, “Google should reflect on the fact that after 12 months of intensive cross industry consideration and active development – in which Google has been party to – publishers have identified not only the patent inadequacies of robots.txt, but more progressively have come up with a practical, open and workable solution for publishers and content aggregators.

“So, we – once again – call upon Google to embrace ACAP and to readily acknowledge the right of content owners to determine how their content is used.”

For more information on ACAP, go to www.the-acap.org. Frequently asked questions are available at www.the-acap.org/faqs.php.