This morning brings another cautionary tale for anyone trying to build a Website or a business using data from another site. Visual search engine ManagedQ is broken right now because it took images of Websites from another visual search engine, Snap, without permission. (See screenshot above). Sound familiar? Alexaholic (now Statsaholic) ran into similar trouble with Amazon a year ago for taking graphs from Alexa before they were officially available through its API (read more about that dispute here).
It is unfortunate that Snap effectively disabled ManagedQ, which is run by a few programmers out of a basement in Palo Alto. But it goes to show that just because data is becoming more freely available on the Web, you still have to be careful about building a business on another company’s data. It appears that ManagedQ based its visual previews entirely on Snap’s images. As I wrote in a review last month:
Every time you do a search on ManagedQ, a grid appears on the right of the first six results so you can visually see what is on the other side of what is normally a blue link. If you click on one of the images, it opens up a larger, browsable window still within ManagedQ. The idea is that you can surf the Web without leaving the search application.
The way ManagedQ was using the images violated Snap’s terms of service (TOS), according to Snap CEO Tom McGovern. Snap does distribute these images through its Snap Shots widgets. (We use them on TechCrunch. If you mouse over any external link in this post, an image of the Web page on the other end will pop up). After coming across the site, his engineers figured out that ManagedQ was taking the images from Snap without any attribution or link, and cloaking the fact that it had done so. After contacting ManagedQ and not getting a response, McGovern ordered his engineers to block the site’s access to Snap’s images. Warns McGovern:
Folks really need to use services per the TOS. Otherwise they will go the way of ManagedQ or Alexaholic.
Ouch. At least his engineers didn’t replace the Website snap shots with goatse images. But the reaction does seem a bit harsh, especially for a tiny site like ManagedQ. Was McGovern justified in his response? Here’s what ManagedQ looked like before:
Update: ManagedQ founder David Stat has provided the following comment on their shutdown at the hands of Snap:
As we’ve been developing ManagedQ, we looked at several different
thumbnail services and decided on Snap due to their speed and high image
quality. ManagedQ is an experiment with visual Search, not a high volume
Search site. As such, we believed that Snap would not mind our use of
their service and may even encourage its novel and interesting
application. Before using Snap for our site, however, we performed a
traffic analysis and found that ManagedQ would consist of only about
0.01% of Snap’s traffic at most – hardly a share that would affect them
in any meaningful way.It is most unfortunate that Snap has decided to block us, but I
understand that they are perfectly within their rights to do so. We did
not, however, receive a notice beforehand. We would certainly be
interested in pursuing an agreement with Snap that is outside the bounds
of their normal TOS, but we haven’t yet done so because we thought
ourselves too small for them to consider such a partnership.Our focus is on continuing to create a new Search Experience with broad
appeal. We believe data should be open by default. We are at a loss
as to why a relatively big startup like Snap would feel threatened by a
small Search experiment like ManagedQ.
Update 2: Snap CEO Tom McGovern has also added these remarks to the situation:
We want sites to use the service in an unadulterated manner where the
actual Snap Shot is shown. There are lots reasons (server load,
business model, end user confusion) that this is important to us. For
developers that are working on a project or offering a commercial
service there are many other companies that offer a developer API
(Girafa, thumbshots, Alexa).
A cautionary tale for sure, we do the same, but luckily via remote satellite hubs on a queuing system so ours has not broken.
I think if anyone ever uses another persons data or API they should build in a remote location and caching function from the ground up to avoid these issues. Either when they break by design or accident.
I don’t think they were harsh at all, McGovern tried to contact them before blocking them, which is the polite professional thing to do.
Not having a pop at ManagedQ as I don’t know them but, there are too many new companies out there ripping off other peoples content without permission. I know that I’m seeing more of it in the U.K.
Doesn’t hurt to actually ask for permission does it?
It wasn’t harsh at all. In other industries (travel) you still have to pay to get data every time a user requests it, very un-”2.0″ but that’s life, no such thing as a free lunch.
“which is run by a few programmers out of a basement in Palo Alto”
….yeah, a few programmers in a garage never threatened anybody … ha
Was he justified? Is that an honest question?
It fits right in with my Scrabulous arguments… these companies are protecting their brands.
What if I had made a site that scraped the managedQ offering via server requests and duplicated their site 100%, making their servers do all the work of building the result set while I yanked the HTML and replaced their logo with my own? Would that be acceptable? If they got pissed about that would it be an overreaction?
Imagine if they had credited Snap with the images… had they given attribution and graciously and profusely thanked Snap for such a bomb ass service then things might have gone differently for them.. but they knowingly deceived both Snap and their users in what can only be described as cowardly and despicable… and they know it.
What i don’t like about the question is that it gives an opportunity for free loaders to justify their hatred of copyrights and legal protections of a businesses revenue. Just like with music… “I should be allowed to torrent all my music because it cost’s them 2 cents to make a CD…” …
from the mouths of babes…
If anything, it’s a cautionary tale for companies like Snap– they ought to have blocked it as early as possible, with zero fanfare, so they could avoid all the press like this.
I think irresponsible folks like ManagedQ make it harder for everyone else, glad they got cut off. But I can’t believe anyone went to a site called ManagedQ to begin with.
BTW they could use Alexa’s images, no?
And Matt, in terms of attitude, you’re totally right. There is an entitlement mentality lately where if someone doesn’t like the terms of purchase, they just steal and rationalize it later. They can’t imagine just not having what they want at the price they choose, whether the thing’s for sale or not.
Is this a joke? Assuming the facts in the article are correct, ManagedQ was stealing Snap’s content in violation of their TOS. Snap tried to contact ManagedQ but got no response.
It doesn’t matter if ManagedQ is two guys in a garage or if they’re backed by some Megacorp… they were still stealing the content. Snap’s response is entirely appropriate.
well done Snap.
totally justified
no attribution
no links
that’s the bare minimum required by most creative commons content
whether you’re a bunch of people in a garage is irrelevant
what’s relevant is that it was a business
it might be different if it was some hobbyist blogger scraping an image here or there
This seems to be a slam dunk. They were essentially stealing the images, no attribution, and are surprised they got shut down?
well. this is exactly what friendfeed and other aggregated feeds are doing, twitter can shut them down in 2 sec.
Michael, I’m surprised you’re trying to insinuate that its alright to leech off other people’s content here because we’re living in a world where copyright doesn’t matter, where the web2.0 spirit prevails and everything is kumbaya.
Running a server to capture images to millions of websites is no small effort and its clear the ManagedQ folks would rather not do the heavy lifting themselves.
Totally justified; same stuff happening at http://www.cssdesigned.com
Greetings, all,
Just wanted to thank everyone who’s posted supportive comments here. I’ve just left an official Snap post @ blog.snap.com, but the gist of it is that we tried both publicly and privately to warn image scrapers that we were going to shut them off.
Then we did.
We spent millions of venture capital to build our image crawler and database and it would be unfair to our investors, our employees, and the millions of sites and blogs that use our technology to let image scrapers off scott free.
We’re happy to let ManagedQ use our images for free if they follow the rules. And even though our origins are in visual search, we’re happy to let them compete with us on our own turf, using our technology. For example, a certain search engine from Stanford uses us on one of their test sites: http://www.sear...mash.com/flash/.
Re: 13.
My apologies to Michael I meant Erick.
nice comments. I especially agree with Morgan. I find that the majority of people have no clue about intellectual property rights – or if they do they simply choose to ignore them. It’s a “ME” attitude.
In a lot of these cases use would be granted — just ask. Sure, there may be some form of compensation requested (revenue sharing or licensing) but that’s too be expected. Oh, and if you can’t afford to do that–there’s a pretty good chance that your idea will eventually become a blackhole.
Sucks for ManagedQ I guess because sites like Youtube, Metacafe and CrunchyRoll are getting away with taking someone else’s content and building their own community everyday.
The new biz model I guess is- I take your content without permission, I build a community with it, you come sue me (in most cases it never comes), but when it does come, I say to you “Hey why take it down are we not helping you advertise? Are we not helping you reach viewers you never had before?” In most cases content owners do bend.
If snap doesnt have an open API that offers to companies then ManagedQ are insane to start a project based on this.
and whats crazier is if ManagedQ didnt have a back up plan from day one to prepare for Snap when they shot them down then they are coo coo for coco puffs.
What is crazier still is that they have 5 million in funding and they didn’t want to try to ink a deal to use snap’s data?
Everett, you do realize the difference, right? YouTube builds community on content people consentingly give it, while ManagedQ violated explicit terms from the hand that (unknowingly) fed it.
I’m wondering where the response is here from ManagedQ.
Hah, Snap even did this to a site I essentially setup for myself to track online video sources http://www.channeldock.com/
It’s interesting, I had thought I figured out a way to legitimately display thumbnails leveraging my registered Snap account. I guess they do not want users implementing any kind of ‘mashup’ using their assets in any other way than the Snap Shots paradigm that they themselves offer(?).
So Snap, the ball is in your court. People obviously want to leverage what you’ve got. Are you going to capitalize off of this demand or just keep shutting off people who are clever enough to “think outside the ’shot’”?
I have to say that Snap is more than justified. I’ve seen what it takes to generate the previews, (in another company), and it’s not cheap or easy. By stealing those previews ManagedQ was really taking a lot from Snap.
It was a justified decision. That’s not only brand protection, but bandwidth and server time stolen for the previews. And to think they could have just allieviated the whole thing with a few simple links back.
If you’re using someone else’s services, it’s polite to link back to them anyways or at least say that’s what you’re using.
Justified. Seriously, if a site has a posted ToS and you violate it, can you really be upset or surprised when you get shutdown?
If you want to skirt a grey line (which I’m all for, pushing boundaries is key to innovation), go for it, but at least be courteous/responsible.
Use the santioned tools when possible, provide attribution, and by all means contact the source and let them know what you’re trying to do.
I wonder ,Why youtube is not being charged also ?
Facebook also has pirated material
I kind of missed an obvious, but important, point here: the content contained within Snap Shots is fully licensed and completely within the terms of service of the various providers we use like GoogleMaps, Wikipedia, etc. Our image previews are covered under Fair Use, but if a site asks us to remove a preview, we do so promptly.
They deserve to not only have their service shut down, but also they should be sued. If they don’t have any money to be sued for, take their server just for spite.
I guess it would be ok to create a copy of TechCrunch with different styling
Arno, you wouldn’t be the first. http://www.tech...ut-attribution/
I’m not trying to imply that Snap wasn’t within its rights here, BTW. But also realize that this kind of thing happens all the time. It is more common than many people think. I asked the question at the end to draw out some of the people who might think that what ManagedQ did was OK and start a discussion.
But it looks like everyone here pretty much agrees (me included). No dissenters?
I think what ManagedQ did here was fine. If anything they only give Snap more exposure, something Snap needs. The mistake that larger companies make is shutting down these sites. I agree if the bandwidth charges are substantial it makes economic sense, otherwise the larger site comes across as the angry corporate bastard and they actually can gain distribution by allowing this. (think MySpace and YouTube’s symbiosis) I give ManagedQ props for trying something new in a market that is completely stale and has been for years. Some good Biz Dev would patch things up for Snap and ManagedQ I would think…
Snap shutting down ManagedQ shows McGovern doesn’t really understand the internet. If anything Snap should force ManagedQ to put the Snap logo on it’s homepage or say “powered by Snap” or something that would build distribution/brand for Snap. McGovern’s decision to shut ManagedQ down first and ask questions later is shortsided at best and just plain stupid otherwise. ManagedQ is easily another channel for Snap to get it’s name out there and gain distribution. McGovern is likely just another 3rd-tier CEO from a non or only semi-tech background that just doesn’t “get it” and is more a visitor in Silicon Valley, than a true resident. (think Terry Semel among others)
I think Tom was completely justified in what he did. ManagedQ’s decision to use Snap’s thumbnails without permission was just a bad business decision on their part. There’s no one to blame but themselves for that.
I think Snap did everything right.
They tried to contact ManagedQ publically and privately before pulling the plug. What more could you ask for?
So ManagedQ.com has changed to a different thumbnail service provider, but the new guy (websnapr) blocks them as well . All I am seeing are “Forbidden Request” thumbnails.
That’s hilarious!
what a free advertising for both parties involved
I think there been a few factual misrepresentations here. Firstly, we never received an email or any communication from Snap asking us to cease using their service. Secondly, the resource usage attributable to ManagedQ amounts to a rounding error in terms of Snap’s total impressions per day. Those two things being said, we’re a bit at a loss as to why they decided to proceed in such a public fashion.
Terms of Service on the Internet are little more than one company’s attempt to tell the world how they’d like their service used. If we all obeyed the TOS, no one would have unlocked iPhones or downloaded music on their iPods. Remember in 1996 when some sites had TOS preventing people from linking to them without their explicit authorization?
We’re not trying to say that Snap is not within their legal rights in blocking us, we’re just saying it seems like an overreaction.
thmbnl.com anyone?
#37 Funny I did not realize that TOS were just suggestions. I think this whole thing is amazing – its an open and shut case of stupidity by this site. Those Snap guys blogged twice that they were cracking down so I have to believe they sent e-mails to the users of their service. Maybe it was not received because a bogus e-mail was given to sign up for their service?
I’m actually surprised at everyone’s knee-jerk reactions here. Credit card companies always set aside a certain portion of their receivables for defaulted payments, and web services companies should do the same – allow small sites like managedq and the many others that use snap’s service against their tos to carry on. For Snap, there is essentially no cost (traffic from these sites is not high enough), and there is the added benefit of the goodwill and feeling of debt garnered from these sites. Obviously, if one of these sites becomes popular enough, they should shut it down. But it seems that managedq is too small at this point to require such action.
A bit harsh and reactionary, I would say. But perhaps their margins aren’t so hot and they need to trim off all the fat.
JDD – help me with that logic… “Credit card companies set aside a portion of receivables for defaulted payments” so it is okay to default / commit credit card fraud? You need to check your ethics or at least your ability to reason.
jabber – Ridiculous. Of course it’s not an admirable thing to default on a loan. But it happens all the time, particularly to people of middle-lower income. I’m sure you would condemn them all to eternal damnation.
Can you read? Nowhere in my post did I defend ManagedQ. I only criticized Snap for what I deem an inefficient and ultimately ineffective business practice.
Snap is well within their rights and ManagedQ should’ve cached so in the time between switching providers their screenshots wouldn’t go completely down (as they are now).
Snap is the most disgusting piece of crud to ever grace the internet. I have it completely ad-blocked from my browser. Snap did them a favor. They can use something better.
David Stat, Founder, ManagedQ:
>Secondly, the resource usage attributable to ManagedQ amounts to a >rounding error in terms of Snap’s total impressions per day.
Rationalizing theft based on your victim’s seeming ability to afford it indicates you are in dire need of an ethics course, David.
Face the facts: You were completely wrong in this matter. Accept it, stop rationalizing your behavior, stop playing the victim, and make amends by dealing with Snap (or whomever) in good faith.
Good luck to you and your venture.
That the probelm with based your business on other people’s data. Like
FB introduces IM and all the 3rd party FB IM app companies are going to go bust. Stupid people never learn.
I cannot understand, however, why ManagedQ needed to rip Snap’s images when putting together your own thumbnailing service is so simple. It’s not as if it’s a problem of accessing a pool of data that’s behind closed doors (such as Alexa’s or Google’s). You can develop a service to screenshot Web pages without much difficulty.
Even if you can’t figure out how to make such a system (and if that’s the case, you shouldn’t be building a search engine), there are quite a few paid-for APIs (some not too expensive) that will do this screenshot stuff for you and let you use the images mostly as you like.
I’ll sympathize with people scraping data where there are few other options, but scraping out of laziness to solve a problem yourself is, well, lazy.
Well at least they got the publicity they needed to stay in the light
title i found very lame for post
but in a way they had to be scrapped, how can you run a startup on top of someones data?
ManagedQ gets free press here and it’s a good thing because their site is actually pretty cool. Snap just ends up looking like the bumbling snarky corporation. It apparent the Snap GOON squad is all over the comment board as well. This is a very simple case of a creative startup trying something interesting and getting shut down by a corporation that’s within their rights. Not a big deal. ManagedQ already has another service doing this so no need for everyone to et their panties in a wad.
Why is Snap so hot and bothered….? Could it be that their traffic has been flat for a year and Tom McGovern is desperate to appear on top of things in a weak attempt to hang onto his cushy job? See the numbers…
http://www.alex...etails/snap.com