What IRSeeK means to WyldRyde and you

There has been a lot of debate and controversy since last Friday when TechCrunch reported, "Will IRSeeK Have A Chilling Effect on IRC Chat?" If you're unfamiliar, IRSeeK claims to be the most comprehensive IRC search engine and according to TechCrunch they had indexed over 300 million IRC conversations in 2,000+ IRC chat channels across 10 IRC networks. Several WyldRyde channels were indexed without any disclosure or warning and IRSeeK was displaying logs of those conversations on their web site.

IRSeeK claims that they only log public channels and that they care about the privacy of the users. However, we remain skeptical since they published email addresses and user nick names in their logs. They also didn't disclose that they were logging any channels until it was too late...once the channel log was posted to their web site and even then there was no direct disclosure to the channel being logged. Furthermore, when some channels and networks began to ban IRSeeK's bot, including WyldRyde, their bots began using an underground privacy service to obscure their real host/IP so that they could evade the bans and reconnect to the channels and networks they were banned from. Once again there were no direct disclosures that these were bots, that they were employed by IRSeeK, and that they were actively logging channels.

Even though the WyldRyde IRC Network is open to the public we believe that IRSeeK was violating our Conditions of Use and intellectual property rights by displaying our Content on their commercial web site without our expressed permission or license.

Since, in a message posted on IRSeeK's blog they announced that they have suspended the service and are disabling their site until they can "figure out satisfactory solution(s) to the user’s concerns." They also state that they are considering several approaches to minimize the concerns and are open to further suggestions. While some of these approaches are satisfactory, the adoption of all of their proposed policies is not enough.

So our position is clear, WyldRyde will not permit the IRSeeK bots to connect to the WyldRyde IRC Network until the following conditions are met:

1. The IRSeeK bot shall not be present and no channel shall be logged unless the channel's founder has specifically "opted-in" and requested logging of his or her channel(s).
   
2. IRSeeK must remove and destroy all logs made on WyldRyde prior to the aforesaid opt in requirement.
   
3. IRSeeK must have policies in place that allow a channel's founder to easily request the removal of any (or all) logs of their channel(s) if they so desire.
   
4. IRSeeK must allow individual users to opt out of having their own chat logged and have their chat removed.
   
5. The IRSeeK bots must be immediately identifiable. This means the bot shall have a nick like, IRSeeK-logger-1, IRSeek-logger-2, etc and use chatlogger.irseek.com as its host. Also include a URL in their user name and away message to IRSeeK's optout page.
   
6. The IRSeeK bots must not attempt to evade channel or network bans.
   
7. IRSeeK must not display nicknames, email addresses, phone numbers and other personally identifiable information in their logs. They must also publish a privacy policy that clearly identifies how any of this logged information will be used and have a policy that allows a user to request the removal of his or her information that was collected.
   
8. If IRSeeK plans on displaying ads along with these logs on their web site, the chat network and the channel's founder should get a cut of the revenue.