Robots Exclusion Protocol And Rules For The Internet Competition

Robots Exclusion Protocol refers to a text document exists in the Internet web page of whichmain purpose is to rule and restrict the content of the search for web crawlers so that the website information can be protected. In recent years, frequent internet competition disputes about Robots Exclusion Protocol have caused strong impact on the internet industry and reflected the lack of rules and regulations for this kind of competition.It is necessary to construct a system to rule the competition about Robots Exclusion Protocol based on Chinese situation in order to improve the legal regulation of internet competitors.The first chapter of this article makes an explanation about what is a Robots Exclusion Protocol and its nature and effectiveness. Then the chapter makes a conclusion that Robots Exclusion Protocol is industry practice which does not have a legal force. The articleanalyses the nature of internet competition and how it connect with private right protection. Finally, this chapter interprets what the internet competition about Robots Exclusion Protocol is and what it reflects.The second chapterlists and compares Chinese and foreign cases relate to Robots Exclusion Protocol dispute and obtains different definitions of the legal position and different protection ways and methods of Robots Exclusion Protocol in different nations. It also makes the revelation for the protection of Robots Exclusion Protocol and control of the Internet competition.The third chapter discusses the role and function of Robots Exclusion Protocol in the perspective of intellectual property law. It explores the relationship between works and the content of website as well as how to protect the latter. This chapter suggests that Robots Exclusion Protocol does not have a formal legal statusin intellectual property law system. So this methodcannot provide comprehensive protection for the content of website, especially those which are not works.In the fourth chapter, Robots Exclusion Protocol is placed in the context of the industry self-discipline. Firstly this chapter discusses whether the Robots Exclusion Protocol is soft law rule and concludes that it belongs to soft law as well as its efficacy still need recognition of national mandatory law or authority. Then the article discusses the nature of the industry self-discipline convention and effectiveness of Robots Exclusion Protocol as soft law rule in the convention. On the premise of agreeing that the industry self-discipline has important function, the article suggests that it still need to be improved to make Robots Exclusion Protocol in good work.The fifth chapter makes Robots Exclusion Protocol associated with anti-unfair competition and confirms that internet competitions about the protocol could be constrained by the competition law. Through analyzing the relationship between Robots Exclusion Protocol and business ethics in competition law, the article thinks that there is a considerable degree of consistency between them and puts forward some treatment methods to deal with such behavior.On this basis, the last chapter lists the pros and cons of both sides of various methods to protect Robots Exclusion Protocol mentioned before and suggests that the better way is to combine all methods together. The article finally provides some thoughts in specific operations which are able to be helpful to solve this problem.