Who owns the DATA from your domain traffic.

[namestrands]

I have often pondered about sites such as Alexa, Quantcast and Compete an how they are able to profit from information about my domain names.

Thankfully Both Alexa and Quantcast have the option to opt-out or indeed remove domain names, however the same can not be said about Compete.com.

Therefore a question for the legals here, if a request is sent to Compete to remove your domains from there index or analytics and they refuse, what is the course of action? especially if the domain name/website is a trademark.

In the UK Trademark Holders can simply ask that all occurrences of a TRADEMARK be removed from a website and if refused they could enforce.

Third Party Analytics seems to be somewhat of a grey area.

I also have serious issues with the likes of DomainTools who seem to be able to profit from breaching WHOIS rules by data mining user information. At what point is DATA no longer yours?

 

[Theo]

I believe that you can block sites such as Alexa and Archive.org with a simple htaccess line; not sure about Compete.

 

[namestrands]

Alexa allows you to remove, as does Quantcast.. Compete on the other hand refuses. So was looking to find out what grounds they have for refusing.

Their Entire IP range is
69.25.74.192/27
69.25.77.144/28
66.151.234.16/28
66.151.182.192/28

however they appear to but data from ISPs which has the surfing habits of Americans, this is apparently how they get there data. Data is also bolstered by the compete toolbar.