Comments on: What The Associated Press’ tracking beacon is — and what it isn’t

By: What The Associated Press is saying to Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo » Nieman Journalism Lab

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 17:01:57 +0000

[...] to “real-time metrics,” they’re also expecting partners to support the AP’s system for tracking use of its content along with other “protocols” I wrote about at length in [...]

By: New media watch update | Hog House Blog

New media watch update | Hog House Blog — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 22:36:45 +0000

[...] on the jump. (Apologies to my friends at the AP in Sioux Falls.) Meanwhile, here’s how Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab describes what AP is up to: The point, of course, is to identify uses of AP and potentially member [...]

By: Associated Press plant Online-Überwachung geklauter Inhalte | Wirtschaftsthemen

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 06:02:19 +0000

[...] Überwachung der Leser? Wie AP gegenüber Zachary M. Seward (niemanlab.org) mitteilte, seien nicht die Leser der illegal übernommenen Inhalte das Ziel sondern [...]

By: Zachary M. Seward

Zachary M. Seward — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 19:12:01 +0000

Thanks, Gerd. Though the AP hasn't joined the Fair Syndication Consortium, they're customers of Attributor, so I think that's a fair bet. I asked Kasi if the "'passive' tracking service" was Attributor, but he wouldn't say. —Zach

By: dustbury.com » Just a dusting (4)

dustbury.com » Just a dusting (4) — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 12:33:32 +0000

[...] The Associated Press’s new “tracking beacon”: Be it noted that I tried tucking a tracking script into my own RSS feed, but dropped it for lack of tangible results after less than 72 hours. [...]

By: Gerd Kamp

Gerd Kamp — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 07:10:40 +0000

For those wondering, i think it is save to assume that the” “passive” tracking service will crawl the Web searching for AP content and identify the publishing Web page, an image of usage and the time of discovery. Matches will be queried against the active tracking database, and unauthorized uses will be pursued.” that is referred to in the APs document is Attributor.

By: Here’s the AP document we’ve been writing about » Nieman Journalism Lab

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 19:46:18 +0000

[...] — Why The Associated Press plans to hold some web content off the wire — How The Associated Press will try to rival Wikipedia in search results — What The Associated Press’ tracking beacon is — and what it isn’t [...]

By: Adam Gaffin

Adam Gaffin — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 01:56:00 +0000

That graphic is just another example of AP cluelessness and inability to tell people in English what they’re really up to (because they don’t know themselves or are trying to obfuscate?). Something that looks like a barrel of sludge is a pretty standard network-design icon for a “database.” Do a Google search on “database icon” and you’ll get zillions of examples. So AP had some artist who normally works on networking schematics do a diagram that to him is perfectly reasonable, but which to most people, yes, looks like a person about to be dumped in toxic waste.

By: Dylan Smith

Dylan Smith — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 23:02:30 +0000

The AP doesn’t seem to realize that every AP hosted article includes a link that allows users to post articles – why aren’t they publicizing that instead of trying to scare off distributors?

But then, AP also tried to fend off the evil bloggers from embedding AP YouTube videos, when that’s the entire point of YouTube in the first place.

By: Bradley J. Fikes

Bradley J. Fikes — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 20:06:21 +0000

“But in talking to Kasi, I came away with the same impressions as Columbia Journalism Review’s Ryan Chittum: that the AP isn’t interested in broadly pursuing copyright claims against republication of its content.”

Either the AP is having extraordinary difficulty in communicating its intent, or it is trying to hornswoggle you and Chittum. Apply the same skepticism to AP as you would to any other business caught saying different things through different people. I’d really like you to get Curley on the record about this.