Google Groups#Deja News
Deja News ( long form: Deja News Research Service, short often contracted Deja or Dejanews ) from 1995 to 2001, a site for research of Usenet articles to an archive of most of the former text newsgroups. The operating company was called Deja News Inc. The name Deja News is believed to play to the term déjà vu, from the French for already seen.
Steve Madere, founder of Deja News Inc., presented the site in 1995 in Austin, Texas for the first time online. With their extensive search capabilities found acclaim, controversies generated and changed the way such as discussion forums were perceived.
Although it had previously been given archives of newsgroups, Deja News offered but a novel combination of functions: It was open to the public, presented an easy- to-use user interface available on the Web, allowing queries on the archived groups at the same time, delivering results quickly and concluded that Article without prior restriction (regular news server delete item usually after a few weeks). Was the Usenet with a time of a loosely organized communication medium with volatile character into a valuable source of information through these opportunities.
The permanent availability combined with the ability to search for authors, led to controversial discussions on the issues of data protection and privacy. The often expressed in Usenet warning that one should be careful with what you reveal in articles, so got a special date.
The operator Madere was initially unwilling to remove archived posts, protests of users and the threat of legal action changed this, however. His site eventually supported the permanent removal of articles ( nuking called, from English to nuke: nuke ) of certain authors, who did not want to be listed.
In addition, the X - No-Archive header was introduced, with which an author could ask the Posting about this product from the inclusion in the archive ( or displaying the article in the search ) ruled out.
Rights holders also were given the opportunity to remove articles that contain pirated intellectual property. According to Humphrey Marr of Deja News, this was most commonly used by Scientology.
The service of Deja News was finally expanded so that it exceeded the pure search for items. With My Deja News you could be on the traditional customary by your newsreader type groups and chronological read posts. Furthermore, the possibility was offered to write articles. Deja communities did not allow public forums, which was used mainly by companies.
In 1999, the focus changed greatly. Deja News was renamed in May Deja.com and offered primarily a service to compare prices. Deja reader should classify all kinds of products through reviews, this information in turn were incorporated into the recommendations on the Deja site. During this orientation, the server changed their location, then many older products were no longer available.
Deja started 2000 so, display advertising in Usenet articles. Individual terms were hyperlinked to the advertised websites. This change was very bad in parts of the Usenet community (see for example discussion in the FITUG mailing list).
Towards the end of 2000, after the bursting of the dotcom bubble, the company had financial problems. Risk capital remained and advertising revenue from cost recovery. They sold the price comparison service to Ebay, who used it on their site Half.com.
2001 Usenet search service was shut off. The archives and domains were bought by the company Google Inc. and offered as Google Groups again. Google had also received from other sources, archives and was able to offer approximately 650 million items, ranging as far back as 1981, shortly after the Usenet had ever been established.