Google Index Database to be Archived?
TechDirt reports that the San Jose Mercury News is running an article about Brewster Kahle’s Internet Archive – Archive.org. While he’s been profiled many times before, the one interesting tidbit to slip out this time is that Kahle has asked Google to donate their database to help the archive.
Kahle’s asking for a six-month old version of the database, to avoid competitive problems. The Internet Archive only publishes material 6-months old or older at this point anyway. Kahle is trying to appeal to Google’s claim to want to make the world a better place, but you have to wonder if Google is holding back, in part, due to Kahle’s involvement with open source search engine, Nutch.
Driving Kahle is the conviction that the world’s information is a common good.
In that spirit, he also has asked Google to furnish him with a copy of its database, say with a six-month delay so Google’s competitiveness doesn’t suffer.
Google has yet to grant his request. But Kahle hopes the company will come around, especially in light of its claim that it wants to have a positive impact on the world. A Google spokeswoman declined to comment.
He learned a tough lesson when search engine Infoseek initially agreed to give him a copy of its database. When Infoseek went bankrupt, though, the lawyers didn’t follow through. So Kahle is adamant that Google should act soon.
