Does Google scrape content in whole, separate them from the original page and reuse them on other people's commercial websites without my permission? Y'know, the same difference between Google and a website that steals articles from other sites and reproduces them in whole for ad revenue, which is exactly what this site does but because 'it's comments' it's suddenly magically considered okay?
But isn't that up to the blog/site owner whether or not they want to be included in Backtype? And if the users don't like it one way or the other they can choose to go elsewhere.
I guess I've never viewed my comments on other people's sites with such strong ownership.
It is up to the owner (and their terms and conditions, natch). But it should be opt-in, the same way any other sort of permissive content licensing is explicitly opt-in, and the same way it's bad form to take content that isn't permissively licensed and reuse it on other sites without explicit permission. There's no reason why taking comment content should be treated differently from taking article content.
Hijacking other people's content without permission should not be considered a business model.
And for all the people who have modded me down, why? Explain the flaw in my logic, or is it a case of "Well, I like it and he doesn't so I'll mod him down"?
