A consortium of newspaper publishers recently launched the Automated Content Access Protocol (ACAP), the new, non-proprietary, open standard developed to protect the intellectual property of those wishing to make content available on the World Wide Web. The launch follows a highly collaborative 12-month pilot project undertaken by the European Publishers Council, World Association of Newspapers and International Publishers Association.
The new ACAP standard allows publishers limit how long search engines can retain copies of Web pages in their caches, and stipulate that search engines do not follow links, among other features. Among publishers, The Times Online is the first website to take up the ACAP standard. Representatives of major search engine providers Microsoft, Google and Yahoo were present at the ACAP release, even though their adoption of the new standard is voluntary.
ACAP held its first conference on June 26, 2007 to showcase the development of the new 21st century open standard for owners of content published on the World Wide Web. Launched in October 2006, the initiative was designed to encourage owners of high quality content to make their work easily available online and also help avoid complex and expensive legal disputes between content providers and search engines.
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