Re: lynx-dev User Agent

[David Woolley]

> Is there a normal protocol for resolving these issues with 
> web site maintainers? Since this is a high-visibility site,
> I thought I'd inquire if there was a history.

I think attempts normally fail, but I would suggest the following:

Carefully read all legal notices on the site:  if they refer to
issues of security (trusted SSL implementations) you will probably
have no luck and may risk prosecution if anything goes wrong with
their security; if they mention spiders or crawlers, you might just
be in luck but will have to really convince them that Lynx is normally
operated interactively by a human; if they mention advert blocking
or stripping, you are probably out of luck and any access with a non-GUI
browser would probably be fraudulent.

If you still think you have a case, you then need to work out what their
business model is and how support of Lynx is beneficial to their overall
profits by an amount that is significantly more than their additional
costs (e.g. the cost of writing text only copy for banner adverts, or
commissioning alternative adverts from suppliers that have products that
sell well to the typical Lynx user).

> What would folks think of a feature that allowed one to associated
> a user-agent name with a particular web-site, so that one could
> more easily access recalcitrant web sites without annoying
> manual configuration?

I think this could be considered a conspiracy to obtain a service by
deception and, even though it wouldn't be worth prosecuting, could lead
to an arms race, where the site looks for more reliable ways to block
unapproved browsers and crawlers.