As I understand copyright laws, then unless you give someone explicit permission they don't have any permissions. If that's correct, then maybe a missing/empty robots.txt should be taken as a "Do Not Enter!" sign. I realise this will probably give web-masters more to do, and possibly more complex robots.txt files, but I also thing that it would make people/companies consider more carefully what and how they publish on the web. It's a thought anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
As I understand copyright laws, then unless you give someone explicit permission they don't have any permissions. If that's correct, then maybe a missing/empty robots.txt should be taken as a "Do Not Enter!" sign.
I realise this will probably give web-masters more to do, and possibly more complex robots.txt files, but I also thing that it would make people/companies consider more carefully what and how they publish on the web.
It's a thought anyway.