The dangers of sharpening blunt instruments

“Leading news organizations” are looking at updating the robots.txt file format so they can place new limits on what the search engines can index and how long they can keep the information. Good idea: robots.txt is a pretty blunt instrument.
However, there is no question that search engine referrals are more of an opportunity than a threat for “leading news organizations”. I’m working on a report right now that will demonstrate how big that opportunity is and how badly it has been missed so far.
Take a deep breath. Now perform a thorough exploration of that bath water for hidden babies before you toss it out.
Originally published on my blog at JupiterResearch.