

Google shuts down its newpaper archiving effort - ChuckMcM
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/20/google_ends_newspaper_scanning_project/

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ChuckMcM
This is unfortunate. I understand the stupidity that is copyright policy that
makes it necessary but there was so much good that could have come from having
newspapers from at least the larger metropolitan areas searchable and online.

One of the more interesting things was to match prices in the advertisements
against the published 'inflation rate'. Since the US Gov't leaves out food and
energy prices, and manufacturers have been waging a war of 'smaller quantities
in the same sized package for the same price' inflation, it was possible to
construct a 'typical' basket of goods from stores and compute its change in
value over time.

Great for economists, not so good for policy makers.

