Spiked WSJ story lives on at ZDNet UK

Remember that Wall Street Journal story that disappeared suddenly earlier this week? The one that said the US government side intended to ask for Microsoft to be forced to grant free licences to the source code for Internet Explorer? Well, you can still read it if you want to. Actually, there was a clue to where you could still find it in our original story on the subject. The story was published on the WSJ Interactive edition for a couple of hours, during which time it was picked up by ZDNet US and republished under what we presume is a licensing agreement. The ZD version was word for word the same, and credited the WSJ and the WSJ writer. Naturally, the ZDNet US story doesn't exist now either. But remember we pointed out that it had also been republished by ZDNet UK, aka CyberChump Central? Well, we thought we'd just sit and watch this one through the week until 6pm BST on Friday, so we could give ZDNet UK an opportunity to test its out of office hours disaster recovery procedures. If you want to see that non-existent WSJ story, it's still on the ZDNet UK site in plain. As we mentioned earlier, it doesn't credit the WSJ or the author, but attributes it to ZDNet US. We're sure that this must mean that ZDNet UK has its own special OEM deal with the WSJ, otherwise it would effectively be stealing WSJ stories and passing them off as its own, wouldn't it? But it seems to be a habit, whatever. Today's WSJ story about the Microsoft security hole is presented in the same way on ZDNet UK - word for word, but no credit to WSJ or writer. Who we note happens to be avid Register reader and former AP heavyweight Ted Bridis. You know about this stuff Ted? But it looks simple enough to get in touch with whoever at ZDNet UK is doing this. Click on the ZDNet US attribution, which is where the byline would be if it were ZDNet originated, and you get a mailto to one Richard Barry, who just happens to be editor of ZDNet UK. ® Related stories: MS may be forced to give away Explorer source