Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Dealing with a competitor who is scraping my content and ranking higher

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 130 posts

Re: Ask HN: Dealing with a competitor who is scraping my content and ranking higher

#51

Post by danielbarla »

Jaruzel wrote: post #50
orf wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and probably less annoying to your visitors. As someone who has used both, absolutely 100% no in every way. Google's captcha is so superior to what you would write, please don't tell people not to.

How so ? It's really not that hard. I've done it, and it zeroed spam coming through a web form almost 100%.

Both (custom and recaptcha) are essentially security by obscurity, in the sense that a skilled attacker will eventually bypass it. The problem is not that difficult. The advantage Google has is being able to move the goalposts, potentially on a daily basis, while you presumably have better things to do. On the other hand, they are a juicier target, so will draw more effort. Ymmv.

Google tends to strike a good balance between convenience and irritation.

Re: Ask HN: Dealing with a competitor who is scraping my content and ranking higher

#52

Post by ericpauley »

Jaruzel wrote: post #50
orf wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and probably less annoying to your visitors. As someone who has used both, absolutely 100% no in every way. Google's captcha is so superior to what you would write, please don't tell people not to.

How so ? It's really not that hard. I've done it, and it zeroed spam coming through a web form almost 100%.

So would disabling submissions. The real question is how many legitimate submissions weren't made successfully because of a bad captcha.

Re: Ask HN: Dealing with a competitor who is scraping my content and ranking higher

#53

Post by nutjob2 »

setr wrote: post #41
lubujackson wrote: post #19

Write a few things. Register them with the copyright office. Then post them and wait for them to copy it. Now you can sue them for the max and strong-arm them to take it all down or face obvious legal fees and punishments over 100k.

Can you sue for monetary damages if you yourself were not making any money off the content? If anything the other site could be called a mirror, and saving our op money on the hosting cost by diverting traffic.. (although maybe not from scraping?)

You can sue for the loss of value of your website, even if it doesn't make an income it remains an asset with monetary value.

Re: Ask HN: Dealing with a competitor who is scraping my content and ranking higher

#55

Post by madshiva »

8bitsrule wrote: post #49

(Note:I am not a lawyer.) If you're a US citizen, any content that you've created yourself is -automatically- copyrighted. (That's also true in all countries where Berne Convention standards apply.) See this link for further basics: https://smallbusiness.findlaw.com/intellectual-property/what... If they're scraping content you created, they have already broken the copyright law. (They may not realize that. Make sure…

any content that you've created yourself is -automatically- copyrighted. This sentence is wrong. A lawyer can determine if the content can be copyrighted or not. Since you said Berne Convention, even in Switzerland, music that you created, if you can't prove that you create it is not "automatically, magically" copyrighted.

Without information about what is scrap, is really hard to say they stole something.

Re: Ask HN: Dealing with a competitor who is scraping my content and ranking higher

#56

Post by mockingbirdy »

Jaruzel wrote: post #50
orf wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and probably less annoying to your visitors. As someone who has used both, absolutely 100% no in every way. Google's captcha is so superior to what you would write, please don't tell people not to.

How so ? It's really not that hard. I've done it, and it zeroed spam coming through a web form almost 100%.

I've build a ReCaptcha breaker in an evening (which beats Google 100% of the time). The only reason why most spammers don't evade ReCaptcha is because they make enough money through other means (and most spammers can't program).

There are also a lot of services where you can simply send your challenge token and some guy will solve it for a fraction of a penny.

As soon as other money-making opportunities will dry up, spammers will evade ReCaptcha and spam will increase regardless of your security mechanisms.

Re: Ask HN: Dealing with a competitor who is scraping my content and ranking higher

#57

Post by oliwarner »

8bitsrule wrote: post #49

(Note:I am not a lawyer.) If you're a US citizen, any content that you've created yourself is -automatically- copyrighted. (That's also true in all countries where Berne Convention standards apply.) See this link for further basics: https://smallbusiness.findlaw.com/intellectual-property/what... If they're scraping content you created, they have already broken the copyright law. (They may not realize that. Make sure…

Should be recognised that not all data is eligible for copyright. "Facts" is a broad category of exemption with strange case law. It may be relevant here if the data being scraped is available elsewhere.

Re: Ask HN: Dealing with a competitor who is scraping my content and ranking higher

#58

Post by icebraining »

setr wrote: post #41
lubujackson wrote: post #19

Write a few things. Register them with the copyright office. Then post them and wait for them to copy it. Now you can sue them for the max and strong-arm them to take it all down or face obvious legal fees and punishments over 100k.

Can you sue for monetary damages if you yourself were not making any money off the content? If anything the other site could be called a mirror, and saving our op money on the hosting cost by diverting traffic.. (although maybe not from scraping?)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statutory_damages_for_copyrigh...

Re: Ask HN: Dealing with a competitor who is scraping my content and ranking higher

#60

Post by robin_reala »

shiado wrote: post #20

Find a way to contact the owner of the site and bait them with something like an acquisition offer, you might be able to use the email in the whois data if there is one. The point is to get the owner to click a link you provide, behind this link you want to log IP/Headers, maybe do some JS fingerprinting/etc... It is unlikely they will open this link over VPN/Tor. If you feel like it check your server logs to see if…

I don’t disagree with the content of your post and I know this is a US cultural trope at this point, but trivialising rape benefits precisely no-one.
Post reply on HN