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Rights of data owners in a mashed-up world

The decision by Amazon-owned web traffic monitor Alexa to close access to its data API raises interesing questions about the rights of data owners and the viability of businesses built on the free use of that data by other parties.

Alexa’s move was apparently designed to stop Statsaholic (previously known as Alexaholic) from presenting Alexa data in what many users felt was a superior format.

Michael Arrington summarises the issue at TechCrunch with one commenter on his posting (a lawyer) suggesting that Statsaholic was within its rights to use the Alexa data, given that Alexa knew it was happening and allowed it to continue.

Statsaholic, meanwhile, has posted instructions on how to get around the Alexa ban, at least for users of the Firefox browser.