News International plans to block news aggregator NewsNow.co.uk from linking to content on all its websites, including the Sun Online and the website of the News of the World.
The move follows the newspaper publisher blocking NewsNow.co.uk from linking to stories on Times Online last week.
The Times later revealed that it had banned NewsNow.co.uk from linking to its content because Times Online headlines were being included in the link aggregator’s paid-for services.
News International spokesman told Press Gazette: “NewsNow has been using Times Online content as part of its paid-for, commercial as well as free services. They have continued to do so despite our direct requests for them to stop. As a result, we have taken the decision to disallow their indexing of our content.
“News International makes a significant investment in journalism and we believe that it is entirely appropriate for us to ask that our rights are respected. NewsNow has acknowledged that they require our permission to use our content and, in the absence of our permission, has ceased to do so.”
NewsNow.co.uk revealed on Friday that News International had used the Robots.txt protocol to stop its computers from harvesting news headlines from the Times website.
The news aggregator accused NI of undermining freedom of access to public information.
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