Businesses use their websites and social media accounts to promote their products and services. These turn out to be dynamic creations that need to be updated regularly. Blog articles are uploaded at least twice a week. Product pages are loaded daily. Social media sites are updated even faster with regular posts every day.
Social Media Objectives
These updates are meant to increase customer engagement and brand visibility. However, intellectual property infringements are fairly common issues for companies. In most instances, these are uncovered by users who browse their sites or subscribe to their social media accounts. They follow the company’s content marketing and newsletters.
These also happen to be the same people who would notice any irregularities, like improper use of brand names or images. The same users and followers also provide feedback and posts on their social media.
There are some sites online that have copies of old websites. For whatever legal reasons, a website needs a copy of its former iterations. These archive copies are like microfilms of old newspapers. They can be read by researchers, and can also be used in court cases if necessary.
Back-up vs. Archive Software
Back-up software is different from archive software. The website is treated as a database and then copied and compressed into a back-up file. Daily updates are stored in the back-up database as an increment. Every week or so, the whole database is again copied and compressed.
To access a particular data during a week, the whole database is decompressed, and the increments are added to recreate the database state for the particular date. Also, the back-up only stores data from a given date, in most cases up to two months.
Proof of Existence
Necessarily, there would be documentary evidence that these website archives are what they purport to be. Website back-ups are not necessarily archives. Back-up and recovery tools and software are used to enable a database to continue operation in case of corrupted data.
In most instances, the data is compressed and stored. To use or read, these have to be uncompressed and mounted for access by an internet browser.
An archive, on the other hand, can be kept online, and ready to be read at any time. These copies can be accessed immediately and stored for more than a year.
There are also regulations on which companies and government agencies have to follow regarding record retention. Capture page software ensures that the website copy is archived for future access. At the same time, the software provides documentary evidence that it is the correct version of the website as it existed at a specific time.
Facebook and Twitter timelines move so fast that it is hard to keep track of the developments. The algorithms for both may be different, but they present the same problems when presented as evidence in court. The page or post can be lost in succeeding posts, or worse, deleted by either the owner or administrator.
In most cases, the only proof that a post existed is a screenshot of the deleted page. Having a copy and proving that it is the correct one can be verified with the right software.
