In an era where data mining is widespread and automation drives content consumption, clearly communicating a website's terms for text and data mining (TDM) has become essential. Without a standardized way to share these policies, organizations risk legal exposure or non-compliance with data use regulations.
A client managing high-value online content needed to ensure their TDM policies were accessible, transparent, and aligned with international standards. The goal was to communicate legal terms effectively to automated systems, ensuring that web crawlers and other TDM actors understood and respected the site's content usage permissions.
Visus addressed this need by developing a standards-based solution aligned with the W3C's TDMRep (Text and Data Mining Reservation Protocol). The solution involved building a compliant tdmrep.json policy file and exposing it via middleware configured during the application's build process.
The middleware checks incoming request paths for compliance with the expected W3C-standard endpoints—/.well-known/tdmrep.json and /tdmpolicy.json. When matched, it serves a structured JSON response containing all relevant policy details, including:
- Legal and licensing terms
- Business identifiers
- Contextual metadata
- Explicit usage permissions
Critically, the middleware also ensures the response is served with the correct application/json content type—an essential requirement for compatibility with automated systems and web crawlers.
Several key lessons emerged from this implementation:
- Standards Matter: Adhering to W3C conventions enables broader interoperability and legal clarity.
- Middleware Precision: Tight validation of request paths ensures only the appropriate endpoints return policy data, protecting the rest of the application.
- Transparency Builds Trust: A centralized, machine-readable policy helps data miners comply with legal expectations, reducing the risk of unauthorized content use.
By combining precise middleware logic with clear JSON-based communication, this solution allows the client to meet compliance obligations proactively—while also reinforcing digital transparency and control over their intellectual property.