Sunday, October 16, 2005

New Planetoid Discovery Sets Off Feud (AP): Scientist Jose Luis Ortiz says he and his researchers did nothing wrong and the data found using the Google search engine should be considered public and thus free to use. "If somebody uses Google to find publicly available information on the Internet and Google directs to a public Web page, that is perfectly legitimate," Ortiz wrote in an e-mail to the Los Angeles Times that the newspaper cited Sunday. (Via Yahoo! News - Science.) Next time one of his students copies the solution for a homework problem from the Internet, what will he do? He knew that this information was about someone else's observation schedule. He had no more right to use it than that hypothetical student has the right to use the solution he found on the Internet. 8:02:30 PM