I’m creating a News Reader app for Tablets and PCs. My app is fetching data from news sources by RSS feed of websites (in the server-side).
But some of these sites are showing some advertising banners at the end of each article.
Should I remove those banners from the feed? Am I legally/ethically allowed to do this?
And what about If I want to put some other ads in my application? (Right at the end of each article)
I mean, If I want to have my own advertising service…
Update: And what if I use feed for content titles and summaries, but use other thing, like Readability API to show full article, and then put my own ads below content? (Readability gets the HTML page, and gives you a clean page without any ads and such.)
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This is a legal question. You better treat this seriously.
Read the privacy disclaimers on RSS feed that you are using. There should be information on what is allowed and what they don’t want to be used or removed.
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I’d say no, you should not remove ads from the feeds, especially if you’re just going to add some ads of your own – that may or may not be legal (check with a lawyer), but it’s definitely rude as all get out to remove his ads and put on your own.
It’s like those stupid web sites that take some other site’s content, plaster tons of crummy ads and try to generate revenue from page views. It may or may not be legal, but sure as heck no one wants to do any real business with those folks.
Edited in response to question edit: I don’t think how you go grabbing stuff really matters. If you take out the original site’s ads, you are being rude. Basically, I’d say display whatever the site sends, and then put your own ads nearby, but separate enough that it’s obvious they go with the reader not the site.
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