Lots of activity from myfamilyinc.com

[tmaguirre]

Has anyone else had nat.myfamilyinc.com showing up in their access logs? Anyone know if it is a bot of some type? Several times this week I have had hours of activity on my site, and I just can't beleive that there is anything that interesting to a "live human" on my pedestrian site for someone who works at Ancestry.com or My Family...

(Guess I shouldn't dis my own site, but hey! Who knows it better than me?)

[PalmBeachG]

Has anyone else had nat.myfamilyinc.com showing up in their access logs? Anyone know if it is a bot of some type? Several times this week I have had hours of activity on my site, and I just can't beleive that there is anything that interesting to a "live human" on my pedestrian site for someone who works at Ancestry.com or My Family...

(Guess I shouldn't dis my own site, but hey! Who knows it better than me?)

Actually, yes I have - today as a matter of fact.

I wrote them an e-mail and asking them what they are doing with my information, because I give my info out for free to interested family members and I do not want people taking my info that I took years to accumulate and then charge for it for profit without my permission. I don't mind if someone takes it for their own use, but to charge for it is another thing.

So we will have to see what the response is. Mailed it today.

On another note - it doesn't have anything to do with the copyright problem as discussed on another thread does it? Someone mentioned how would they find out if we put our census sheets on our site. It visited all my photos too - How do I know what they are going to do with those photos? Put them for sale for subscription?

[B McFadyen]

Actually, yes I have - today as a matter of fact.

I wrote them an e-mail and asking them what they are doing with my information, because I give my info out for free to interested family members and I do not want people taking my info that I took years to accumulate and then charge for it for profit without my permission. I don't mind if someone takes it for their own use, but to charge for it is another thing.

Hmm.. We want people to index us, but we don't want them to make money off of us. If this turns out to be a harvest for profit, wouldn't the people that are paying for their services, be exactly the kind of people that we wanted to visit our sites? They are probably seriously interested in genealogy.

We seem to be putting a lot of effort into having other engines index us... I think it's a safe bet that they are not indexing our sites out of some moral obligation. I'm guessing it has something to do with money

Having said that, I agree that it still somehow feels wrong. I haven't seen any activity like this yet, but I just added a snippit of code in log.php to allow me to ban sites like this. I can always remove it later if we find out they are simply indexing for the general public, or someone assists in changing my opinion on the subject.

Brian

----------------------------------------------------

Code snippit:

// ---------------------------------------------------

// Added Jul 9, 2006

// Section added to deny site information to identified vistors that may be harvesting for genealogical profit

//

if (strpos($remhost,"familyinc") ){

echo "This site has been created for access by the public, free of charge.<br />";

echo "Access has been barred to commercial harvesting for profit.<br />";

echo "Please discontinue your harvesting of public sites for profit!<br />";

exit;

}

[PalmBeachG]

I have not received a response to my e-mail to them about what they would be doing with my info.

I would like to put the code on my log.php as well. I am not that savy with .php changes though. This code - should it say myfamilyinc instead of familyinc ?

Do I just past the exact code below inside the final closing {} brackets that are already on the original .php code? I just want to make sure I am doing it correctly.

Thanks. Darleen

Hmm.. We want people to index us, but we don't want them to make money off of us. If this turns out to be a harvest for profit, wouldn't the people that are paying for their services, be exactly the kind of people that we wanted to visit our sites? They are probably seriously interested in genealogy.

We seem to be putting a lot of effort into having other engines index us... I think it's a safe bet that they are not indexing our sites out of some moral obligation. I'm guessing it has something to do with money

Having said that, I agree that it still somehow feels wrong. I haven't seen any activity like this yet, but I just added a snippit of code in log.php to allow me to ban sites like this. I can always remove it later if we find out they are simply indexing for the general public, or someone assists in changing my opinion on the subject.

Brian

----------------------------------------------------

Code snippit:

// ---------------------------------------------------

// Added Jul 9, 2006

// Section added to deny site information to identified vistors that may be harvesting for genealogical profit

//

if (strpos($remhost,"familyinc") ){

echo "This site has been created for access by the public, free of charge.<br />";

echo "Access has been barred to commercial harvesting for profit.<br />";

echo "Please discontinue your harvesting of public sites for profit!<br />";

exit;

}

[soozan48]

Actually, yes I have - today as a matter of fact.

I wrote them an e-mail and asking them what they are doing with my information, because I give my info out for free to interested family members and I do not want people taking my info that I took years to accumulate and then charge for it for profit without my permission. I don't mind if someone takes it for their own use, but to charge for it is another thing.

So we will have to see what the response is. Mailed it today.

On another note - it doesn't have anything to do with the copyright problem as discussed on another thread does it? Someone mentioned how would they find out if we put our census sheets on our site. It visited all my photos too - How do I know what they are going to do with those photos? Put them for sale for subscription?

AMEN .... that is why I want to get rid of the "NOTES" section that is open to the public. I worked hard for years on this ... does anyone know how to block out the NOTES section on TNG? I already "privatized" my file (FTM) prior to export but the notes do not get blocked.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks ... Suze

PS .... should we all "gang up" on the "bot" issue? I had that happen with my first web site on "Rootsweb" when I found the same person/id on my site CONSTANTLY. I have warned people about "donating" to WFT .... lol ... so now they are "being stealthy"???? lol :mrgreen:

[mvigor]

I have noticed them at my site at least two times, including really hard today. I'll be adding in that code snippet too.

I have emailed them twice now and they have not responded.

[B McFadyen]

I have not received a response to my e-mail to them about what they would be doing with my info.

I would like to put the code on my log.php as well. I am not that savy with .php changes though. This code - should it say myfamilyinc instead of familyinc ?

Do I just past the exact code below inside the final closing {} brackets that are already on the original .php code? I just want to make sure I am doing it correctly.

Thanks. Darleen

Sorry Darleen,

I hadn't noticed your question.

If you have not already made the insert, it goes almost anywhere after the $remhost=

or better yet... as follows in log.php

$remhost = getenv( "REMOTE_HOST" );

if( !$remhost ) {

$remhost = $HTTP_SERVER_VARS['REMOTE_HOST'];

if( !$remhost ) {

$remip = getenv("REMOTE_ADDR");

if( !$remip ) $remip = $HTTP_SERVER_VARS['REMOTE_ADDR'];

$remhost = @gethostbyaddr( $remip );

if( !$remhost ) $remhost = $remip;

}

}

// ---------------------------------------------------

// Added Jul 9, 2006

// Section added to deny site information to identified vistors that may be harvesting for genealogical profit

// This code is targetted at myfamilyinc.com, note the string check is for only familyinc since myfamilyinc

// would match the first character and return a zero and the "if" would fail

//

if (strpos($remhost,"familyinc") ){

echo "This site has been created for access by the public, free of charge.<br />";

echo "Access has been barred to commercial harvesting for profit.<br />";

echo "Please discontinue your harvesting of public sites for profit!<br />";

exit;

}

Hope that helps,

Brian