On Sat, 17 Apr 1999 [log in to unmask] wrote:

> Thanks for the link! I wonder if the counter is right to tell us that
> already 3 million people have visited this page?
>
> Roger
> http://members.eunet.at/roger67

=================================

Roger:

In fact the 3 million "hits" since mid-1995 on the www.icom.org/vlmp/
counter is certain to be a substantial UNDER-recording because so many
systems now routinely supply copies of popular pages not directly but from
a cache file to save traffic on the networks. Most University systems in
the UK, for example, have a double filter - a cache within the university
itself and then a national Joint Academic Network cache as well.

With such cached systems the original site may only be accessed for
updating of the cache copy once every day or two , while hundreds or
perhaps thousands of downloads of the cache copy would be unrecorded.

Indeed, there is currently a major debate going on within the European
Union about the legality of supplying cache rather than original copies of
web pages and files in this way.  The music industry in particular sees
this as a device to by-pass any copyright or performance right changes for
downloads, and is demanding that caching should be either outlawed
completely, or subject to copyright payments.

I have also protested about this practice on other grounds - as a web
manager I have often found that the caches down load out-of-date copies of
my own web pages.  (At busy times of the year both our own university
cache and the national academic one may well be "turned over" every day or
so as the storage disks (of many gigabytes capacity) are filled up, at
which point the oldest downloads are deleted automatically to make space.

However, at quiet times during vacations the rate of demand and hence
renewal, can drop dramatically.

Patrick Boylan