A popular Internet service that locates digital music and video files also has allowed users to peer at any kind of multimedia file stored on many personal computers--sometimes without the owners' knowledge.
Scour Inc., a Beverly Hills-based new-media company backed by Hollywood super-agent Michael Ovitz, has attracted millions of users eager to tap into what the company boasts is one of the Internet's biggest collections of digital entertainment.
Scour's search engine has created a massive entertainment jukebox, which enables users to access any photograph, sound recording or video clip stored on tens of millions of PCs. But the engine also breaks with accepted search tradition, technology experts say, because some of these multimedia files are up for grabs because many consumers don't know that they are letting anyone look inside their machines.
Scour's attorney insists that the company's search technique is legal. But security experts say that Scour is rattling the virtual front doors of PC owners by providing a one-stop shopping list of computers that are easy to break into because their owners haven't installed security software known as a firewall.
"To say that all people are giving their permission for Scour to do this is wrong," said Bruce Forest, director of new-media projects for Viant Inc., an Internet services firm. "The average lug can't configure a VCR, let alone a secure Internet connection."
Company officials insist they're only looking for harmless material that they say consumers have given them tacit approval to scan. They note that the company doesn't search for sensitive material such as financial documents, although they acknowledge that the software could do just that.
"It may be unfamiliar technology to users, but it's certainly legal and not uncommon to search publicly available content. . . . You are responsible for your own computer," Scour co-founder Dan Rodrigues said. "We're not damaging [anyone's] computer." Ovitz declined to comment.
The PCs that are routinely being searched typically have high-speed Internet access and have linked at least two computers--and opened parts of their hard disks--together in their home. That's only about 20% of all U.S. households that own computers, but researchers predict that 600 million PCs worldwide will be networked by 2003.
Scour's little-known searching technique illustrates the ongoing problems with personal privacy issues in cyberspace, said Stuart Biegel, a professor of Internet law at UCLA.
