On Sun, 6 Jun 2010 09:58:55 +0800, Max wrote:
Actually, who is parasiting who? Isn't it Google/3rd party sites
parasiting on MS, reproducing posts on MS' hosted webpages?

No. Microsoft made the decision to inject into Usenet everything
that was posted on its Web-based forums (or certain ones). Now they
regret that, so they're "closing the newsgroups". Typical Microsoft
desire to eat their cake and have it, and when reality intrudes they
go off in a snit to hatch up something even more non-standard that
they think they'll be able to control.

There are quite a number of sites that leech off Usenet, making
copies of Usenet articles and posting them on their own Web sites
without permission, as though the articles had been posted to their
forums. I believe Microsoft was one of those, though presumably that
has now stopped just as the injection into Usenet has stopped.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
Shikata ga nai...