Service Suspension Update
Following the item posted on TechCrunch’s website, we have received hundreds of e-mails from people who support our activities and people whom are surprised and concerned about the privacy implications of our service.
As of 12:00 (UTC) IRSeek management decided to temporarily suspend all search options on IRSeek in order to find a satisfactory solution to the user’s concerns.
December 6th, 2007 at 9:10 am
I am completely in favor of what you have done. I believe public chat should be made public and not just lmiited to those in the know. Several years ago I did something very similar to what you have done but for a single channel - I considered it a useful resource at the time, others didnt.
Currently, only people with enough IT skills to automatically save channel logs and index them for searching have access to what is a wealth of public information. This cannot be right as public should be everone and not the elite.
December 8th, 2007 at 3:56 am
I think what you are doing is completely fine. If the channel is not secret and/or private then there should be no problem. I do agree that atleast the operators be made aware of the logging but yet again the channel is public. If I go into a public chat room do I have to turn my logging off? I think not. It is ridiculous that this has been made such a big deal. I think that the wealth of information, help provided, and other discussion can benefit the internet community greatly.
December 16th, 2007 at 1:24 am
I’m a huge fan of archiving data. I have archives dating back almost ten years of private conversations I’ve had with others as well as chat logs from private and public rooms.
Being in the SEO Industry for about five years now you would think that I’d support such an idea since I know how valuable content is in the grand scheme of things. I however do not agree with such services.
If I join a room and give advice to someone say about Internet Marketing then that advice should only apply to their current circumstances. What happens if someone else finds that log two years down the road, implements the advice and either crashes and burns or becomes a huge success? That advice wasn’t given to them, it was given to the person or group of people I was freely speaking with.
Too many liabilities that can’t possibly all be managed. Unless this becomes an opt-in only service then I don’t see this being a service that will go over all that well.
John Jones III
- 10 minutes of SEO, SEM & Internet Marketing