New software will connect dots between “rogue web sites”
Thursday, December 8th, 2011
Company says it will help legal efforts against counterfeit goods sales.
As congress debates the Stop Online Piracy Act (STOP) and companies file dozens of lawsuits against counterfeiters, a New York company claims to be developing software to aid in the fight.
RogueFinder, LLC is a new company, having just registered its domain name RogueFinder.com a week ago and filing a trademark application around the same time. But its software looks interesting if it achieves what its brochureware web site claims.
The basic idea is to draw links between seemingly unconnected “rogue” web sites, e.g. web sites selling counterfeit goods. According to the RogueFinder web site, its software takes minutes to do what it takes forensics teams months to achieve.
It uses data from registries, registrars, web hosts, servers, and ISPs as well as inspecting the sites’ “invisible source code”.
It looks interesting if it works as advertised.
Further Reading:
Is RogueFinder willing to say that they will indemnify websites that lose their payment and ad services withoit adequate due process (if anything like PIPA or SOPA is enacted)when the software mistakenly leads to an allegation of infringement?
I would bet not — they screw up but still make $, while someone else pays the price.
You’ve been linked from TechDirt,
“Sounds useful for playing parlor tricks. Not so sure for a system involved in blocking protected speech … determining what is and what is not infringing is not an easy task. At all. It takes a human being who can actually analyze the situation and how it falls under copyright law — including exploring specific exemptions.”
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111209/03174317019/company-claims-its-software-can-magically-identify-rogue-sites.shtml