EarthCache no more

Saturday, September 24, 2005 (06:51 UTC)

One of the earliest network link hacks to hit the web was Andy Fowler's EarthCache KML link, a php script that displayed the nearest geocaches for a view, from the geocaching.com database.

This month, Geocaching.com's owners, Groundspeak, asked Andy to put an end to the link, possibly because they will be offering a similar service to paying customers soon. He isn't happy about it, but he stops serving the script, though his source code is now up for anyone to take and run on their own servers.

Websites mostly own their content, and thus can restrict access via the terms of use, but when the content is user-contributed, then I think you can make an ethical case for not restricting access to it. Instead, use RSS and KML feeds to drive traffic to the site, where you can upsell community services and cool new products (like the travelbug).

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