<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 27/08/14 22:51, Alain Williams
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote cite="mid:20140827215121.GJ24730@phcomp.co.uk"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Just in case you ever wondered what was wrong with proprietary document formats:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-28953299">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-28953299</a>
Records of landmark US civil rights cases presided over by one of the country's most senior judges
have been removed from the internet.
The state-run Public Access to Court Electronic Records (Pacer) service deleted numerous court
documents deemed incompatible with a software upgrade.
</pre>
</blockquote>
What seems particularly strange is that they have not deleted the
data, simply stopped sharing (well, selling) it over the internet to
the public:<br>
"
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;
charset=ISO-8859-1">
<span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet,
Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal;
font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal;
line-height: 18px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent:
0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto;
word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; display: inline
!important; float: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Lawyers
and others who often interact with US courts have a separate
system to access court records - one which is significantly more
expensive, but nonetheless grants access to the same documents."<br>
<br>
I can't see where it says that it's due to proprietary file
formats, though -
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.pacer.gov/announcements/general/webpacer.html">https://www.pacer.gov/announcements/general/webpacer.html</a> (liked
from the BBC article) suggests that their old home-grown system is
being replaced, and the new system is incapable of processing
those files<br>
</span>
</body>
</html>