Glass houses and content aggregation

Robert Thomson, editor-in-chief of Dow Jones and managing editor of The Wall Street Journal, calls those who aggregate others' content "parasites or tech tapeworms in the intestines of the internet," according to a report in the Australian.

He has in mind Google, possibly Techmeme, and possibly our own IT Blogwatch. According to the Australian report, "Thomson said Google benefited from aggregating content from The Wall Street Journal and other newspapers."

Before he makes too much of this, he should check out the sites in his own little world. I've been quite troubled by the excerpts that the Voices sections of All Thing Digital have been publishing. For example, they recently posted an excerpt from our pages. Our post / their excerpt. Fair use or parasite of the Internet?

Techmeme's founder Gabe Rivera also pointed to content aggregation at the Wall Street Journal. I'm not quite sure how Google News differs from the headlines and links in this Technology Stories from Around the Web. It even uses an automated service to aggregate, filter and prioritize.

I say that Dow Jones benefited from aggregating content from Computerworld and other publications. Is he mailing us a check?