4 ms·

Why do you feel that it was the job of "corporations" to preserve and archive of every page forever? In my country, all physical books and magazines which are

Why do you feel that it was the job of "corporations" to preserve and archive of every page forever? In my country, all physical books and magazines which are published must be submitted to the government in X copies. The government then keeps an archive. With webpages, the problem of obtaining X copies never existed. Why couldn't the government have archived webpages like it always did with books?

PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
It is not that it is their job. The problem is the mismatch between the broader public understanding of the lifetime of "a webpage" and reality, when said "webpage" is inside a walled silo (and maybe even when it isn't).
- colonwqbang 6y ago
  I guess I don't see why anyone would expect their webpage to keep being published indefinitely with no contract or ongoing payment. Not many other things in the world work like that. Services provided by a company typically don't survive the end of the contract to provide that service. If the company itself goes bankrupt, all services cease to be provdided immediately. Typically the only organisations which can credibly commit to providing a service for more than a few years/decades is the government of a country, a well-funded foundation with a clearly specified mission, or similar.
rikroots 6y ago
In the UK, this job is handled by the British Library. They have a legal duty to collect annual snapshots of all websites using the .uk TLD https://www.bl.uk/collection-guides/uk-web-archive https://www.bl.uk/collection-guides/uk-web-archive
metrokoi 6y ago
I believe you are misrepresenting the situation. No one expects corporations to archive and preserve all data, especially not data that they are not associated with. However, if they create a monopoly on that data they have an obligation to preserve it, especially in the case of a corporation outright aquiring data instead of simply "out competing" for data. And as everyone mentions, of course they are in no way legally obligated to do so, but they are by any reasonable standard ethically obligated. I do think that the government could and should archive data, but there is currently no system in place for doing so and likely will not be for a long time, if ever. Corporations would simply have to maintain the data that they already have.

PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago

It is not that it is their job. The problem is the mismatch between the broader public understanding of the lifetime of "a webpage" and reality, when said "webpage" is inside a walled silo (and maybe even when it isn't).

colonwqbang 6y ago
I guess I don't see why anyone would expect their webpage to keep being published indefinitely with no contract or ongoing payment. Not many other things in the world work like that. Services provided by a company typically don't survive the end of the contract to provide that service. If the company itself goes bankrupt, all services cease to be provdided immediately. Typically the only organisations which can credibly commit to providing a service for more than a few years/decades is the government of a country, a well-funded foundation with a clearly specified mission, or similar.

rikroots 6y ago

In the UK, this job is handled by the British Library. They have a legal duty to collect annual snapshots of all websites using the .uk TLD https://www.bl.uk/collection-guides/uk-web-archive https://www.bl.uk/collection-guides/uk-web-archive

metrokoi 6y ago

I believe you are misrepresenting the situation. No one expects corporations to archive and preserve all data, especially not data that they are not associated with. However, if they create a monopoly on that data they have an obligation to preserve it, especially in the case of a corporation outright aquiring data instead of simply "out competing" for data. And as everyone mentions, of course they are in no way legally obligated to do so, but they are by any reasonable standard ethically obligated. I do think that the government could and should archive data, but there is currently no system in place for doing so and likely will not be for a long time, if ever. Corporations would simply have to maintain the data that they already have.