13 Dec
2005
13 Dec
'05
11:13 p.m.
Jules Richardson wrote:
What *really* bugs me is that Google may well have the
only copy of
such a historical archive of data, so it's not like you can even take
your business elsewhere to someone who understands the historical
importance of such an archive. If there was a choice, I'd send a
polite email to Google saying why I thought they were muppets, and
just go and use someone who gave you actual access to a Usenet
archive rather than an abbreviated version of one.
Google at least put time and effort (and probably money) into
preserving the stuff so that at least you know exactly why you
want to get in touch with So-and-So. And you can use Google
to try and track this person down.
As far as I know, they have no monopoly on Usenet news.
Anyone else can go back and gather up data from as many
tape archives as they can persuade people to part with.
They must have been deluged with complaints from people
who were having their email address harvested by bots!
Antonio
--
Antonio carlini
arcarlini at iee.org