Homework: Commerce Bots

[Philip Johnson <johnson@hawaii.edu>]

1. What is a bot? What is a Commerce Bot and what does it do?
(Hint: www.botspot.com &
http://bottechnology.com/latest_articles/article5.htm)

2. Name three types of shopbots and give an example of each.
(Hint: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/6.12/mustread.html?pg=10)

3. What can online merchants use to prevent shopbots from gathering and
reporting information retrieved at their site?
(Hint: http://bottechnology.com/latest_articles/article5.htm)

4. Complete the exercise below and answer these questions:
a)Which online merchant offers this item at the lowest price?
b)How does the site (and its shopping bot) enhance your online shopping
experience?

Go to
http://bigyellow.mysimon.com/books_c_music_and_movies/books/index.anml.
In the Title box, Type “active server pages for dummies".
Click on "Go Search".
On the next page, click on the first option (Active Server Pages 2.0 for
Dummies,  by Hatfield).
On the next page, select “Hawaii” as the shipping location, and
“standard” as the shipping method.
Click on “Go Shop”.
The Search Results should appear on the next page.