Firms note data scraping negatives

2009-07-06

The act of data scraping can be pernicious and anyone who publishes original content on the internet is affected by scraping to some extent, it has been claimed. Experts at Sentor suggest that out-of-control scraping attacks on a company's website can seriously damage its business.

Some organisations now claim to not use data scraping techniques at all. The Omega Group, for instance, recently said that it never scrapes data from other websites. Milan Mueller, president of the Omega Group, recently claimed that such acts would reduce its accuracy levels and also harm many of its long-term relationships it has established with law enforcement workers over its 17 years in business. The company made its data scraping claim after revealing that Florida law enforcement agencies were informing the public on certain issues through the use of its CrimeMapping.com service. It said that Florida policing agencies have a grasp of the value of data transparency.

However, other organisations continue to use data scraping techniques in their business, which could have consequences in the future. MJT Net recently released its Macro Scheduler Enterprise Automation Suite, which can be used to automate data scraping from a website and then enter the information into another interface.

"There are so many situations where you have two computer systems that need to share data but just can't," said Marcus Tettmar, chief executive officer of MJT Net. "Instead of investing huge sums in developing a custom integration, our customers are taking the easy route, automating the information transfer using Macro Scheduler," he added.

While the intentions of MJT Net's scraping service are positive, others using the technique have more sinister uses for it. Screen scraping malware, for example, could be used to steal passwords, if recent developments are to be believed. Raz Yalov, chief technology officer for 41st Parameter, told the Tech Herald that having passwords presented in clear text would only be beneficial for malware using screen scraping to steal the classified information.

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