February 11, 2004, 1:36 AM ET
Topix.net service policy: Hypocrisy in action

First, I was intrigued by Topix.net, an automated site whose robots screen-scrape thousands of American news sites and categorize the content for easy browsing by topic. It is innovative and useful, and the folks who put it together, alumni of the Open Directory Project, really know their stuff.

But I happened upon the site's Terms of Service and was appalled by its hypocrisy and cheekiness. It left such a bad taste in my mouth that I can't bring myself to say anything else nice about the service.

Let's take a look at the "Use of the Service" section of that page.



Topix.net Violates Right of Free Speech

Comments:

Topix.com is a dangerous area and a forum for wackos and nut job trolls. The site has no administrator and does not require any user registration. Why?? because they want hits on the web, their loony theory being that if you allow anyone to post on it you will get more traffic. True- but at what cost??? surly this is wrong and causes no end of trouble for people who have been and who are abused by trolls on topix.com

site rating: total trash

comment by mmmhollywould on Mar 15, 2008 1:17 PM ()

Cannot read them because it is distorted or there is no image?

FYI, each page has a link to the original article where the screen shot was taken.

reply by topixsucks on Mar 15, 2008 1:37 PM ()