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Google v. Microsoft
ph43thon writes "The New York Times business section has an article, The Coming Search Wars, about Google and Microsoft. It's fairly long and pretty interesting. Oddly, the writer or somebody out there, seems to think that Google v. Microsoft is analogous to Netscape v. Microsoft. I wasn't aware that you needed to download special software to run this Google search application. Somehow, I don't think Microsoft will find this fight to be as easy."
Not only that, but search just plain ol' google with these terms:
/" directory modified
..and whatever term you want to add to that mix.
"index of
You can find lotsa unprotected directories with lotsa FREE, umm.. stuff.
Idealogically, a boycot against MSN is a fnatastic idea, the problem is that from a marketing perspective (for commercial sites) its suicide.
Each free click a site receives is invaluable, to the point that a whole industry is built upon manipulating search results (generally those of google, because thats where the vast majority of traffic comes from) in favor of bettering the positioning of their clients. Try googling for "seo","search enging optimization","search engine placement" and the like and you will notice the sheer number of results speak for themselves.
Ironically enough, results provided via this industry often cost more and perform worse then google adwords (first because it takes some odd months for any results to show, and second because googles sorting algorithm change every month or two and maintaining good position takes constant manipulation), but the point is, that the top five results in any engine, be it google or msn, is money in the pocket. As such business entities will set idealology aside; disallowing msnbot is not a viable solution for any commercial entity.
How do I keep track of people who are fingering
Think not? Just take a look at their history. They stared very simple, sure, but each year the search gets smaller and smaller while the crap gets deeper and deeper. "Portal mode" peaks around 2000 and starts back down as they try to win back some of the Google converts.