mysmutsearch FAQ:
1) How did I get to this page in the first place?
Most likely you found this URL in your httpd logs.
2) What is mysmutsearch? How does it work?
Mysmutsearch is a search engine, which provides ways for sellers to reach buyers and content producers to reach content consumers,
specifically tailored to the 18-plus (preferably 30-39) market.
3) How can I prevent my server from being indexed by mysmutsearch?
The simplest implementation is a /robots.txt file.
This tells mysmutsearch (and/or other crawlers such as "Googlebot") not to index certain paths on your site, or the entire site.
Changes to /robots.txt are automatically recorded by mysmutsearch's web crawler.
To set permissions on a specific HTML page, use the ROBOTS meta tag on the page's header.
In conformance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, if you wish us to filter allegedly copywrit works from our index, notify abuse. Requests must be made by the owner or someone authorized to act on behalf of the owner, and must identify the allegedly infringing material, per Section 512 (c)(3)(A), "Elements of Notification" of the DMCA.
4) I'm a lawyer. Can you provide some legal precedents for this fascinating new technology?
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was enacted on 10/28/1998. mysmutsearch is in de facto compliance with DMCA protections granted to search engines and information providers, per Section 512(d) "Information Location Tools". Like other visual search engines such as Google or Ditto,
we remove infringing material, once notified, in an expedient fashion. Furthermore
we're in good faith conformity with internet self-regulations regarding proactive crawler "netiquette" (see FAQ #3), thus allowing any entity a simple means of disengaging traffic/publicity originated from this site.
Case study: Section 1202 of the DMCA governs "integrity of
copyright management information." Section 1202 (b) prohibits, without prior authorization, several forms of knowing removal or
alteration of copyright management information, as defined in 17 U.S.C. §§ 101-810.
As our site contains no alteration of copyright information, knowing or unknowing, and accurately disclaims attribution, we are concordant with the standards applied in the dismissal of Kelly v. Ariba Soft Corp ("Plaintiff's images were swept up along with two million others available on the Internet, as part of Defendant's efforts to provide its users with a better way to find images on the Internet. Defendant's purposes were and are inherently transformative, even if its realization of those purposes was at times imperfect. Where, as here, a new use and new technology are evolving, the broad transformative purpose of the use weighs more heavily than the inevitable flaws in its early stages of development.")
This corroboration of cyber-law is elucidated further in the denial of Ticketmaster's preliminary injunction against Tickets.com. In the first ruling dismissing four of the claims, Judge Hupp states "hyperlinking does not itself involve a violation of the Copyright Act... since no copying is involved. This is analogous to using a library's card index to get reference to particular items, albeit faster and more efficiently." In a later ruling dismissing the remaining claims, the court notes that "The comparative use by [defendant] appears very small and there is no showing that the use interferes to any extent with the regular business of [plaintiff]... While [plaintiff] sees some detriment in [defendant]'s operation (possibly in the loss of advertising revenue), there is also a beneficial effect in the referral of customers looking for tickets to [plaintiff's] events directly to [plaintiff]."
"Section 512(d) relates to hyperlinks, online directories, search engines and the like. It limits liability for the acts of referring or linking users to a site that contains infringing material by using such information location tools, if...the provider [does] not have the requisite level of knowledge that the material is infringing [and] upon receiving a notification of claimed infringement, the provider...expeditiously [takes] down or [blocks] access to the material." source
As the first quote indicates, in order for a service provider (which presumably includes those providing search and directory services) to be exempt from certain types of liability, the provider must use predominantly automated means of operation. Because such types of automation are frequently employed in the creation and maintenance of search-related databases, those services would generally be protected under the safeguards mentioned in the second quote. source