Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/1998/12/11/high_noon_for_thieving_b/

High noon for thieving B-*!&%*!&-S

2b shamed or not 2b shamed, that is the question

By Tim Richardson

Posted in On-Prem, 11th December 1998 12:29 GMT

News aggregation Web site NewsNow has hit out at rival site, 2b, accusing it of stealing headlines to aggregate on its own site. As of noon today, anyone trying to click on to a topical new story posted on 2b's site from The Register, for example, will instead get a message telling them that the story has been nicked from the NewsNow site. We don't think it will mention where NewsNow got it. The news aggregation service decided to put the boot in because it says 2b has been pilfering headlines and stories on the hour, every hour, for the last couple of months. Struan Bartlett, NewsNow's managing director, said he had tried to resolve the problem in a good-natured way, but his attempts to put a stop to 2b's unwholesome activities have come to nothing. "Enough is enough," Bartlett said. "We've spent time and money creating our software and database for NewsNow and then these guys come along, steal our stuff and then pass it off as their own. "Our stuff has been copied without permission so we've implemented a workaround to prevent this abuse of the NewsNow service," he added. No doubt we can expect some form of retaliation sometime this afternoon (see Crawly Cullen NewsNow story). ®